dead weaver sale

heather carvell

WE LINED UP EARLY FOR THE SALE. Most of us had added this one to our calendars within moments of reading the announcement in the guild newsletter. In our hand-knit hats and mittens, hands clutching the straps of homemade tote bags, our foggy breaths mingle with each other’s as the anticipation turns antsy. This, after all, will be our first glimpse into the world of Grace Fingleleaf. 

Often, dead weaver sales consist of items tossed in bins, hastily sorted and set up in the guild meeting place. This one, too massive to transport, will be held in the recluse’s home. Not an extraordinary wooded artists’ retreat, but a squat, two-story row house in the middle of the city. 

Her neighbors pass our gathering crowd, most offering a quick head nod and glance up to the house as they step on the grass. We are taking up the whole sidewalk. But a few pause, asking if we’re really able to go in. Some stare with reverence at the huck lace curtains. One woman tells us the window dressings change color each year, and she looks forward to the new designs. Most say they’ve never really met her, since she didn’t attend the block parties or evening gossips on the stoops. She seemed to leave only to go to the grocery store and the post office, wrapped packages coming and going in a steady rhythm. An older gentleman asks if he could join us in the house. Living near her for 40 years has piqued his curiosity, and they’d shared nothing but pleasant greetings in all those decades. 

When we finally enter the living room the scene is as shocking as it is unsurprising. Cones and skeins of yarn arranged by color cover every surface that has been rendered a sale table. Full plastic bins and cardboard boxes wait on the floors to restock. Every fabric artist collects, and the rumors let me know to expect a lot, but this amount is like nothing I’ve seen. This is madness. 

Grace, a long-time member of my regional weaver’s guild, never attended a single meeting, but entered the contests and sent her wares to be sold at guild holiday markets. She did not accept the countless invitations to teach classes or speak at conferences, and there was only one name in the directory year after year. When we spoke of her—which was often—we assumed she had made her living off of prize money and sales for nearly fifty years. We also speculated on why she stayed hidden, and the comments were not always kind. 

Swept up in the frenzy, I begin to paw through the tables, worried I might miss something. I’m barely past the expanse of creams when I touch a cone of pale mauve silk and wonder if I’m good enough yet to weave with silk. A woman next to me places her hand near it, lying in wait. She and I share a smile and when my hand retreats ever so slightly, she grabs the cone and places it in her handwoven bag. 

“That’s okay, love?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s right lovely,” I say, trying to match her Irish cadence and accent. 

I inspect the table of dark hues and choose a small cake of deep coffee-colored wool. The cake probably started three times the size. What project had she made with the rest? The yarns around it have me picturing the completed pillowcases, linens, shawls, and skirts that would be attractive in these colors. The frenetic desire to purchase begins to fade, and I scan the women and men crammed into this living room. Face after face chronicles concentration, delight, and camaraderie. Weavers dreaming up projects. Some test the integrity of the yarn, tugging at strands, others display their finds to friends, shoulder bags bulging. Vibrancy and excitement registers in the din of voices. When was the last time this house heard such sounds?

Past the yarn, in a small window alcove, a table is piled with stacks of her completed projects—towels, rugs, bags, blankets, scarves, sweaters. An elderly man sits in a chair behind this table. I struggle to decide—the prices are low enough I can take multiple pieces home—and I know I need to own something this legendary weaver created. I find a blanket with my favorite M and W pattern and a sunset orange shawl with a fire-burst overshot pattern, and I hug them to me, bracing for the musty smell. I’m surprised when I’m greeted by eucalyptus and mint. I study the blanket. It has none of my tension and uneven beating mistakes. 

No one notices when I slip through the doorway into the quiet kitchen. A time capsule. Formica counters and pale pink cabinets, not changed from the 1950s. A silver edging runs the length of the counter. On each metal drawer pull hangs a handmade towel with patterns more complex than I could create. Not only a time capsule, but an art gallery.

I open a drawer which is crammed with napkins and placemats. Did she ever have a dinner party so someone could appreciate her work? 

Glancing back at the main room, certain I’m still undetected, I keep going. Throughout the house her obsession takes shape. 

There are no photographs or paintings on the walls, only tapestries and draped shawls. 

The guild secretary told me that the weaver’s brother and niece arranged the sale. The niece contacted the guild about helping promote it and price items, since they don’t know much about her aunt’s hobby, as she called it. The brother flew in from Nebraska. The niece did not join him. He must have been the elderly man sitting behind the table of her creations. He smiled and complimented my choices. Imagine the gifts she sent her brother and his family over the years. Perhaps she hoped to teach them one day. 

The steps creak slightly as I ascend, but I’m confident no one can hear. 

On the single bed in one room a beautiful green tulip-patterned quilt is spread. Her dresser, chair, and small, full bookshelf are neatly arranged. The bathroom is sparse. Her brother must have emptied out her products. There is nothing to show her preferences. The bath mat is handmade, as are, of course, the matching canary and cream towels. 

At the end of the hall a door is closed. Clearly private and a sign for snoopers like me. But I can’t resist. 

Not sure what I’m expecting, I gasp when I open the door. 

The loom room. 

Three floor-to-ceiling windows and a skylight allow light to pour into the space. Not wanting to be found, I shut the door. A high, empty bookshelf runs the length of the interior wall, scraps of yarn litter all around it. That must have been where she stored and sorted her yarn. On one shelf sits a photograph—a couple donned in clothes from early in the century, her parents presumably. The woman stands with her hand resting on a spinning wheel. She is not touching the man. I stare into her face, wondering if it harbors any traces of Grace’s. 

There are two looms pushed into the corner and boxes of accouterments sit open near them. Warping boards and her tapestry frame lean against the wall. The same scene downstairs will play out again next week at the loom and parts sale. There was too much inventory and too little space to have them both on the same day. Equally obsessed people will crowd into this intensely private woman’s sanctuary and dismantle her temple, separating into parts her life’s tools.

Still in the center of the room under the skylight, her eight-shaft loom is half-warped. I have no idea if she was sick, or if she mercifully died in her sleep, but her optimism is clear in the striped emerald, sapphire, and gold pattern of her warp. I check the pattern in the heddles, and I’m unfamiliar with the design. On the loom, there is only the slightest layer of dust, and lemon oil wafts when I run my hand over the loom’s castle. Someone had the good sense to take care of it since she’s been gone. 

With a half-warped loom there is only one path. Forward. It’s too much work to pull it out and not finish the project. I have an urge to buy the loom and finish what she began. Though my beginner skill could not possibly match what she would have eventually produced. Could I ask her brother if I could come and try to finish it before next week? Surely there are more capable weavers downstairs that could honor the project.

I pull out my phone and snap photo after photo. I imagine Grace chatting with the workers installing the new windows. In the scene that plays out in my head, They are in awe of her and her work. I wonder if she made them something as a thank you. 

A chevron patterned burgundy and slate cloth runs the length of the bookshelf. Someone must have missed it for the sale. I consider rolling it up and putting it in my bag. Her family will not possibly appreciate the extraordinary hours that went into it. 

Standing near the loom bench, I scan the scene once again—the loom parts, yarn scraps, empty bookshelf, half-warped loom, the photo of the woman and her spinning wheel. Then I lay down, my stomach pressing into the floor. My hands make a pillow for my head, and I trail my eyes to the door. Indeed, the wood is worn and bowed in a path. Loom bench to door. Any polish or finish is long gone, and the structure thinned by her lifetime of footsteps. What more is needed than this path? This singular passion borne into the integrity of the house. I close my eyes. Beneath the floor the cheerful activity continues. 

This woman, this dead weaver, a phrase we fling as casually as a stray hair, crafted her life. How her hands and back must have ached to make such beauty. 

I bet if she could have—this singular soul in her corner of the world creating magnificence—she would have woven the walls.