The Long Thread Podcast

When she married her husband, "polyester kid" Anita Luvera Mayer received an extraordinary wedding gift from her mother-in-law: a loom and weaving lessons. A weaving store owner, Marcelle Mayer gave …

Susan Druding was a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley when she first learned to spin and weave. In the Bay Area of the 1960s, fiber interest and social tensions both ran high.…

After you finish weaving fabric that you love and are proud of, cutting it up can be an unappealing thought. What if it falls apart? What if you make the wrong cut? What if the finished piece doesn't…

"All This by Hand"—that's the promise of PieceWork magazine, which was first published in 1993 to honor the handwork created through the ages, mostly by women, mostly with little fanfare. "Handwork r…

Don't try to put Sarah Swett in a box—if you do, she might just weave a bag on it.

Growing up on the East Coast, Sarah found herself more enchanted with knitting sweaters from farm yarn than the tr…

Clara Parkes became many knitters' guiding light and best friend when she launched Knitter's Review in 2000. One of the early standouts in the early online knitting landscape, the site developed a de…

After decades as an art therapist in suburban Sacramento, Lisa Mitchell and her husband, Greg Hudson, were ready for a radical life change. In her rewarding but exhausting career, Lisa spent her days…

Wanting to help the women in her native country called Rangina Hamidi back to Afghanistan. Through the khamak embroidery they have practiced for generations, Kandahar Treasure supports women making a…

Venturing to a frozen lake in mid-winter, Josefin Waltin does something remarkable: She breaks the ice with a hatchet and climbs into the frigid water. And unlike an ice-bucket-challenge or polar bea…

The resist-dye technique known as ikat involves wrapping individual threads in careful patterns, dyeing them, and then using the dyed threads as warp, weft, or both. With care and what Mary Zicafoose…

The treasure in a handmade life isn’t just mastering skills and making goods, Melanie Falick says—it’s the power in creation, connection, and expression along the way.

When Melanie Falick started …

Admiring the simplicity of traditional bandweaving, Kerstin Neumüller took her love of weaving a step further and learned to carve small, sweet rigid heddles. She was startled to find a big demand fo…

Life lessons are where you find them. Peggy Orenstein found them in her quest to build a sweater from scratch.

When I say that Peggy created a sweater from scratch, I mean wrestling a sheep to the…

In 2010, Lynda Teller Pete was living in Denver with her husband Belvin, working full-time in a demanding government job in the Department of Labor, living the life on a modern urban Indian, doing a …

In Meg Swansen’s world, knitting is so much more than knit and purl. It links music, mathematics, deep history, and world-wide communities. It is a platform for creativity, invention, and technical …

When you think about circular weaving, you may flashback to weaving on a paper plate or cardboard using simple materials and methods. But artist and weaver Emily Nicolaides has taken circular weaving…

More than spinning, weaving, stitching, or any of the other crafts she's written and published about, Linda Ligon is fascinated by the people who make traditional textiles. From Peruvian spinners to …

Most stores don't invite passersby to walk up to their shop, open a door, and help themselves—no obligation, no purchase required. But not long after opening new new yarn store in the Mt. Airy neighb…

Marcia Young started her craft publishing journey by accident, with a newsletter and website for her local quilt guild. With small children at home, she fit in writing around the edges, until almost …

More than 100 years have passed since Shaniko, Oregon, went from "Wool Capital of the World" to forgotten spur of the Union Pacific Railway. A dozen miles from Shaniko, R.R. Hinton was the area's lar…