I look back fondly on my childhood, growing up with my parents, siblings, cousins and extended family, often gathering at my grandparents’ house. The first of such gatherings would have been Christmas, 1982, two weeks after I was born. This would have been when my Grandma held me for the first time and where I saw my Granddad’s face and heard his voice for the first time. I chose a Christmas wreath frame as my loom in celebration of these special family times. It also connects with my ancestors as Christmas is a holiday that both family lineages would have celebrated. These all make up the invisible forces that created me; a festive holiday spirit, celebration, tradition, the spirit of family and togetherness, with an element of magic.

I warped my loom with a yarn that changes from red to green to white and while there is the Christmas connection, these are not the traditional Christmas red and green as the red is a brighter red and the green is a lighter green. Some of the yarn is flat and clean while other parts are scraggly and messy looking. Similarly, I am festive, bright, light, clean and messy, with my own cyclical rhythms. The thin yarn reflects the thinness of my essence, which prevails beneath and beyond myself and my life story. This essence is light, bright, earthy, soft, and fun. And there’s a somewhat mysterious element of cleansing.

I ended up mostly using the playful pattern to represent my past, for times that were playful and fun and I was surprised that I continued using the playful pattern even for the difficult times where I struggled. It’s neat to see that the difficult times don’t overshadow the surrounding times of the larger life context. I used purple yarn to represent my past, as it has always been one of my favourite colours.

For my present, I used the same yarn that I used for my warp to represent my personality because I feel centered in myself. I like myself and my life. I used the ‘over one, under one’ pattern to reinforce this centeredness. It occurred to me that I was no longer using the playful pattern and yet, it’s not that I’m no longer having fun, it’s just that this time in my life is more characterized by stability. Perhaps it is also true that I’m not having as much of the same kind of fun as I had in my past, but I am much happier to be settled and grounded and no longer struggling.

I chose to weave the fun, playful pattern back into my future with the white yarn of my warp thread, symbolizing simplicity and clarity. I later needle-felted a red heart into the center, my future, which in essence also connects me back to my past and my present, which is full of love - for my family, new and old, for my friends, for myself and this life.

Starting from the outside and weaving into the center felt consistent with my experience of time – the first few years of life feeling like a slow, long expanse of time, speeding up more and more with age. With my future, I could really feel the time I have left getting shorter and shorter resulting in fewer options for weft thread and pattern. I had planned on making a wreath around my piece, however when I started adding branches around it, it didn’t feel right so I decided not to do it after all. I have yet to decide what I will add around the frame of my piece.

This was my first time weaving and I felt uncertain a few times along the way; first with warping my loom and then with leaving threads just hanging loose out the back each time I switched yarn. The way that I warped it gave my weave quite a loose quality, which actually fits with how I like things in life. I enjoyed needle felting the wool roving around the outside of my piece as it’s a material I’m familiar with and the softness it adds to the piece brings me comfort and joy. To me it symbolizes the pre-birth period. My piece remains unfinished, yet perhaps, it is complete.