Here’s a partial list of gifts given in The Weight of Cloth:
A Bible / a caramel candy / a pearl necklace / a cotton lawn handkerchief / figs / a packet of candied orange rinds / an assortment of perennial seeds / a turkey feather / three grains of rice / a broom made of dogwood sticks / an alligator tenderloin / a carved wooden bowl / shared tricks on how to foil the patrollers / a tortoiseshell comb / a moss green gown / a set of dainty silver spoons / yardage of lace / a mechanical wooden duck toy / Madagascar rice.
The Weight of Cloth: A Novel is available on Amazon now! A day early. For Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple Books, and others, you need to wait until tomorrow.
Drayton HallCollage using image of The Door of No Return, Elmina Castle, GhanaSlave quarters at Aiken Rhett House
One of my indigo projects started with this beautiful terrarium garbage pick. Yes, people throw objects like this out around here — in fact, this is the second glass terrarium we’ve found on the curb.
Filtered as black and white to see the lines
I decided it would make a good stencil, if a little complicated. I had to practice.
In Leverett, Chinatsu, the workshop leader, had some cool hole punches, so I added those dots on either side. We pressed a thin mesh on top prior to using.
You carefully smear rice paste on and hang to dry before wetting, then dunking in the indigo vat for 90 seconds.
These two days reminded me that keeping time is challenging for me (yes! Even 90 seconds with a giant clock in view) (which BTW is different from the ability to show up to things on time, which I do easily). Also, how I make messes became obnoxiously evident (rice paste smears, anyone?) The big tell regarding challenge-level was how tired I got mid-afternoon — even though I was having fun and otherwise not stressed.
After letting the stenciled and dunked cloth drip back into the indigo vat for a bit, you took it out to a rinse station and used a soft paint brush to wipe off the rice paste.
Healthy vats make for deep blue
A library of stencils was available to us.
I carved a little bird which I didn’t think would work but did.
I tried a clamping technique, using two boards and two metal Home-Depot-style clamps. First picture (below) shows the clamped result. Subsequent pic shows the clamped-cloth-result with rice paste design.
You can achieve lovely and subtle results by doing two rice paste applications with a dunk in indigo in between. I only tried it two times. Here’s one example, below.
Dots first, triangles second, with dot paste left on for second dip. For a different effect, you could have rinsed off the dot rice paste after dipping it in dye and then applied the triangle paste. The white dots would have been variations of blue and white.
Chinatsu Nagamune
Born and trained in Japan, Chinatsu also spent two years training in India. She was lovely. Highly skilled. Really knowledgeable. Humble, non-intrusive, funny, and yet still an effective instructor.
Sideways reveal! With husband, Andy.
Lisa and I stayed in Northampton around the corner from where I last lived in 1979 before graduating from UMass. It all seemed shabbier than I remembered. Fewer trains, though, passing on the tracks across the street.
There’s lots more to say about that, but not now and perhaps not publicly.
Even two short days away and I am inordinately glad to be home. Is that a defect or a blessing?
To celebrate summer, we made our annual jaunt to Woodman’s of Essex for fried clams. To celebrate Ken’s retirement we went on a WEDNESDAY.
Being Wednesday and cloudy, the place was reasonably busy — not slammed with customers and lines and cars like it usually is this time of year. That was part of the treat.
When I was little and we came to Rockport for our week of vacation, I would buy two things: a silver charm for my charm bracelet and a small porcelain creature (mostly cats).
This little mouse in a bookstore display also made me nostalgic because I had a real thing about mice. Look how darling she is!
This display is less darling but funny. And yes, we did stop at the famous Tuck’s for a box of chocolates.
As some of you know, I collect rocks shaped like hearts or marked by stripes. Only one was a keeper.
Here I am with my second proof. Arrived yesterday. Several changes, checked and settled. I hope I don’t panic as the release date approaches. Maybe having to go to California the very next week will keep me grounded.
I AM adding to my history post but maybe not as quickly as I’d like. My laptop and phone don’t always talk to each other and that gets discouraging.
This restaurant is at the end of Bearskin Neck. Ken and I had our rehearsal dinner here 34 years ago. Looking back, we both wish we’d left it at that. Gone to City Hall the next day. That small, casual, and delicious dinner was so much better than our wedding reception.
South Carolina. Mid-1700’s. Four narrators: one privileged and three enslaved.
When Eliza is just sixteen, her father departs for the West Indies leaving her in charge of three heavily mortgaged plantations. Her authority will be challenged, including by her mother. A second epidemic erupts and a slave rebellion sweeps the countryside, upending assumptions about safety and order. Can Eliza survive and bring a profitable indigo crop to market? Can she hold out for love rather than settle for a marriage of convenience?
Melody, also sixteen, fights against the constraints of slavery with small rebellions. Her most subversive act? Teaching her sons to read. Will freedom lay down a path near enough for it to matter?
July sews like a Parisian couturier, but her defensive pride crumbles when two boys die of the pox. She cries out to the Ancestors for help.
Saffron and her daughter, Maggie, are bewildered and traumatized by the harrowing voyage from Africa. Saffron calls upon her innate gift of language to make sense of things, but Maggie’s nearly catatonic. Meanwhile, the plantation’s best hunter, Indian Pete, catches Saffron’s eye, and she wonders if love can exist in such a place. His knowledge of the landscape holds the key to a daring opportunity that could change Saffron and Maggie’s fate forever.
The Weight of Cloth offers an unflinching view of history through facts gleaned from the letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and extensive research. In spite of the relentless degradation of slavery, the story speaks to the power of resistance and love and highlights both small and large acts of courage. These characters and their stories will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
Tomorrow my first proof arrives! It’s coming from Amazon.
I’ve set a publication date for September 5, 2024.
