Tonight there was heat lightning, and that always makes me think of this one time. It was a long time ago but it’s always what goes through my mind. So this one time, and I haven’t gotten that far in reading old handwritten notebooks yet, but it was 1978. We’d been living in Lircay, Peru, […]

Yesterday morning five months ago, my mother got off a plane in Cusco, Peru. I can’t begin to guess how many times in her life my mother had done just that, or how many times — just like this one — she was met at the airport by Nilda and her husband Paulino. I was […]

The job was soul-sucking. In retrospect, I realized it was that way in part because they really did just want me to quit; no amount of determination or work on my part was going to change anything. But at the time, it seemed like the right thing: like what I had to do. My office […]

Dear Chris, I bet you wondered, any time you read the birthday letters I wrote to Ed after he died, whether I’d write them to you, too, when you were gone. You never asked me, but I bet you wondered. Well, so. There are ways that losing you is harder than losing Ed. My father […]

My father wrote: 2 March 1977 Chinchero We passed a quiet day watching the rain and mud. I managed to get a couple of hours in practicing doing a Loraypu with both hands, that is picking up from either side towards the middle. When the sun finally began to shine, we sat out by the […]

I’ve been sorting through papers and putting old field notes into chronological order, when time permits. This morning, I found a single page in my mother’s handwriting, tucked into a book of field notes from 1977. I’m transcribing it here in full because I’m thinking a lot about my parents right now; in the next […]

It is with tremendous sorrow that I must formally announce the death of my mother, Dr. Christine Robinson Franquemont. Having traveled to Cusco, Peru to attend the 2013 Tinkuy de Tejedores at the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco, Chris arrived Monday, November 11, and spent time visiting with close friends and family and preparing […]

Stringtopia 2012 Registration is HERE. Here’s what you need to know ahead of time. Read this whole thing BEFORE REGISTERING; you will need to in order to get the link to register. Here’s how registration will work. This is everything we think you need to know; if anything isn’t covered, please send email to BOTH […]

…is coming! Watch this space for more info to be released throughout the weekend, and registrations starting sometime next week, the week of February 13-17th. Here’s what I can tell you right now. What is Stringtopia? Back by popular demand, Stringtopia this year is a 3-day event with a spinning focus, along with some weaving […]

…where I had a wonderful time teaching a customized 3-day Spinning For A Purpose: Being The Boss Of Your Yarn. I love teaching this class, partly because it’s challenging and partly because it’s never the same twice. This was a particularly good time, because the folks at Foothill Fibers Guild were just fantastic hosts. The […]