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Oh, we're going to be making such pretty spring fiber gift baskets soon. Just waiting for some of my packaging supplies to come in. These'll be worth the wait! #fiberartistsofinstagram #fiberart #fiber #wool #woolcraft ... See MoreSee Less

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parrishouse

Life, art, and homesteading at the historic Parris House.
Artist • Maker • Author • Teacher
Publishing w/#downeastbooks in 2020

#marchmeetthemaker Day 5: Close Up. Hooked rugs a

#marchmeetthemaker Day 5: Close Up. Hooked rugs are made one loop at a time. I recently completed a rug that I estimated had over 130,000 loops in it. There is nothing instant about what I do. Pulling loops reminds me of the life advice, "Just do the next right thing." Every day we make choices about the way forward which eventually create a life filled with color, texture, shape, and the resulting meaning. Sometimes loops have to be pulled out because in spite of our best intentions, they are not for the good of the finished piece. Sometimes we have to undo what we did yesterday to move forward with the next best thing. Rug hooking is one loop followed by another, then another, and this process can be spontaneous or carefully planned or something in between, but it's an exercise in patience, love, and a willingness to let the art unfold on the linen, often in its own way. Photo credit: @makingzine, from my article in their Lines issue

#marchmeetthemaker Day 4: Brand Every once in a wh

#marchmeetthemaker Day 3: Time. This clock for the

#marchmeetthemaker Day 3: Time. This clock for the studio was a gift from one of my friends/customers, Irene Adams. Her husband, Ron, built the clock (and builds our shop's hooking frames) and Irene hooked the decorative area. Time is a thing for a maker. In our public-facing studio, where this clock presides over the keeping of time, time means hours spent together making, hooking, laughing, occasionally crying, getting aesthetic advice from one another, and most importantly, just being in community. Upstairs, in the work studio, the space has a $10 plastic wall clock that helps keep us in check. Will we get the shipping out before the post office closes? How much time before our conference call with a retailer? Oh, ten minutes til I have to leave for a trip to my editor's office. Its buddy, the calendar, keeps deadlines for shipping, for commissioned pieces, for writing projects, for preparing for classes and shows. Time keeps moving and we keep moving, forward in our lives, growing in creativity, together.

#marchmeetthemaker Day 2: Hands at work. My hands

#marchmeetthemaker Day 2: Hands at work. My hands are a continual disaster by common aesthetic standards. I rarely get a manicure because whenever I consider it I ask myself, "What projects are on deck that will ruin polished nails in three days?" The hands of makers are not often camera-ready. My hands are scratched, stained, needle stabbed, broken nailed, and often dried out. They are also agile, reliable, and my primary tools of the trade. Sometimes there is beauty in function; sometimes the window to the soul is not just the eye.

Color planning by Tuesday group hooker Lois Ruff i

Color planning by Tuesday group hooker Lois Ruff is always a great time. She joined us today in part to pick up those gorgeous sky colors Heather custom dyed for her (a service we offer regularly!). This tried and true technique for color planning involves throwing your wools down, standing back a bit, and seeing how they play together. Doing this with cut worms helps determine things even better in some cases, as the pieces mingle more readily. This rug is hooked in size 8 and yet it's not simple; it's shaded and richly textured. Landscape in progress designed and hooked by Lois Ruff. #rughookersofinstagram #rughookers #fiberartistsofinstagram #fiberart #wool #handyedwool #texturedwool

#marchmeetthemaker Catching up, so this is Day 1:

#marchmeetthemaker Catching up, so this is Day 1: Story. I am a fiber artist whose primary medium is wool on linen rug making. I am also a writer with my first book to be released this summer. I am a teacher by nature with a passion for sharing my craft far and wide. I've been with my husband 40 years. My four grown sons, their SOs, and my soon to be born grandson are the air I breathe. Maine is the wild around me and my dog, Wyeth, is the wild by my side. I not so secretly want to live in Nova Scotia. I am a survivor of narcissistic abuse by a parent, something I've only recently brought out of the shadow of shame and fully believe needs sunlight to disperse and art to process and neutralize. I garden, keep chickens and bees, and have an unhealthy devotion to my 200 year old house. I am the founder and owner at Parris House Wool Works. My story is ongoing.

Twenty years ago today we became the stewards of t

Twenty years ago today we became the stewards of this wild, beautiful, historic, floor-creaking, occasionally haunted, and now well-loved two hundred year old home. As we speak, a bathroom is getting repairs/redecorating, which has included the discovery that someone before us ran 220 to a 110 built-in electric heater and that's why it's never worked all these years. This old girl has been through some abuses, some stewards apparently more clueless than we are, and more. She was technically built in Massachusetts, before Maine was a state. She's been home to at least one author before me. She surely bore witness to the many conversations on Paris Hill debating slavery and the Civil War. I know this from the diaries of people who were regular visitors here. In more recent history she was the summer retreat to another family of four boys, a generation or so before our four boys arrived. In years past not only did her barn house hens like ours, but also a cow, whose milk sat to separate on the pantry shelf. There were once extensive gardens here, beyond what we have now, as one old timer recollected from his work on them as a boy for the last Parris to live here. Tovookan, the ex-slave who is by far the most interesting and historically important previous resident of the Parris House, rests in the Knoll Cemetery behind the house, along with his adoptive family. There's so much more I could tell, but it's a big responsibility taking on a home like this. It's not just the continual upkeep and repairs or the cleaning or heating burdens. It's not that. It's rather that every decision is laden with, "Am I doing right by this beautiful, old place? Am I leaving her better than we found her while still honoring her history?" She predates and will postdate the likes of us. It is not within our rights to decide that the latest fad on HGTV is what we've got to have now and go banging down walls or throwing away windows made with irreplaceable old growth wood and craftsmanship rare in today's America. Honestly, the Parris House has seen enough of that before we arrived. We are not homeowners, in spite of what the silly deed may say. We are stewards.

Small but fantabulous design class today! Jeanette

Small but fantabulous design class today! Jeanette and Heather created unexpected and wonderful original designs and now I'm like a kid before Christmas waiting to see what these look like hooked. #rughookerofinstagram #rughookers #fiberartistsofinstagram #fiberart #wool #woolcraft #rughookingpatterns

Spent the day going over the initial layout copy o

Spent the day going over the initial layout copy of my book #onemoretime doing edits. #finetoothcomb #seasonsattheparrishouse #downeastbooks #rowmanandlittlefield #homesteading #fiberart #maine

Oh hey look, there are treats out in the run. #chi

Oh hey look, there are treats out in the run. #chickens #chickenkeeping #farmfresheggs #hens #backyardchickens #seasonsattheparrishouse

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Parris House Wool Works

546 Paris Hill Road, PO Box 143
South Paris, Maine 04281
207-890-8490
parrishousewoolworks@gmail.com

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Recent Posts

I Still Believe in New Year’s Resolutions.
Fifteen Things Life’s Too Short to Compromise On
Don’t Play Small
June 2019 Trip to Nova Scotia, Canada’s Rug Hooking Playground
Poetry as Prayer in West Paris, Maine: A Local Visit from Stuart Kestenbaum

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