Hilary from CrazyAsALoom Weaving Studio

As a weaver, from the late 1990s onwards, I always felt a need to gather with other weavers to learn and share and have a sense of community.  

In the early days of Internet we had "bulletin boards".  That was the WWW world wide web era. I had joined one about rug weaving. It was called Rugtalk! We could post messages and have threads of conversation to look back on. But of course there were no photos or links or helpful jpegs or patterns. 

By the early 2000s it had evolved into a Yahoo group. Now we could share photos and keep files online and buy and sell tools and materials and even looms! I made a lot of friends from around the country and even from around the world! We shared ideas and patterns, tips and tricks, joys and frustrations etc. We were a real network of a rug weaving community.

An "online weaving guild".

Over the years, as we travel, I've been able to meet many of my rug weaving friends that I met on Rugtalk. 

Now as we travel east, it was time to meet one more. 

One person in particular, Hilary of the Crazy as a Loom Studio lives on the far Eastern side of New York State. 

In the mid-2000s she bought a marvelous stupendous big huge white farmhouse to turn into her weaving studio! After she had settled in and started offering classes, she finished up a wonderful back porch overlooking her gardens.

When I saw the photos of her back porch, I always said that if I ever get to her part of the country that I would love to sit down and have a glass of lemonade with her on that porch!

She added the peanut butter cookies! 

Sooooooooo, here we are in upstate New York, loving on her two big dogs Willie and Naya. 

The lemonade flowed as easily as the conversation. This was exactly what I had thought about every time I ever spoke to Hilary over the years.  Now we were finally here. 

We spent a delightful afternoon sitting in the coolness of the shade on the front porch. We caught up on all of our projects, as well as our friends from Rugtalk. Some have come and gone over the years, and some have moved on to the weaving room up in the sky. 

Steve joined in on a lot of the conversation, especially on helping me fix or fabricate or reconfigure looms. We also spoke about home fix it remodeling and restoration of her gorgeous farmhouse. Parts of her home are from the 1700s! 

We talked about all of the changes and the interesting things that happened with her home, and the past history that she had learned about it.

These were some basement stairs that over the many many decades of up and down the steps to the cistern and to fire up the burners, the worn grooves from feet on the planks are a treasure to behold. She has saved them and is going to make them into benches. 

After the big barn had been removed some years back, she was able to create this beautiful labyrinth under the shady trees. 

We walked among the paths and shared stories and talked about wildflowers and bushes and plants. 

It is such a huge farmstead set in the rolling countryside of upstate New York. Many years ago it had a lot of acreage. When Hilary bought it, some of the surrounding fields are promised to never be built on. So she enjoys the privacy of a rural setting. 

Steve was especially interested in the fine craftsmanship of the detail trim on the home. Just look at the quality and imagine the time it took to create that?? 

And yes, those are real wooden shutters! 

The backyard gardens are filled with just about every imaginable plant and flower and tree. A lot of her things growing in upstate New York are different than what we grow in Wisconsin. 

Hillary has both an inside cat and an outside cat. This guy is spoiled rotten with two little heated houses for the winter. One is solar and the other one is electric!  Kept a close eye on us as we were working our way around the gardens, and even came for a scratch or two while we were sitting on the steps. 

These cute little zinnias lining the picket fence are ones she had started from a handful of dried out zinnia heads from the year before. She promised me this fall when some of the heads dry out, she will send me some of the seeds. 

As the afternoon wore on, we started to make our way to leave. She would have none of it!  We weren't done talking yet by a long shot. She insisted that we park in her drive overnight and stay. 

It was a good thing that we were situated close to her little playhouse. It used to be a chicken coop. Fortunately, it had electricity. Because, that dang solenoid had not charged our batteries while we have been driving. Although we could have run our noisy generator, we didn't want to ruin the peaceful countryside atmosphere. Lol! So Hilary came out and showed us where we could plug in and helped us with an extra cord to reach the little playhouse. 

We were all snuggled in for the night. Peacefully ensconced in Hilary's backyard. 

We woke up to the gentle pitter-pat sounds of rain. Steve got the coffee parking while I went in to talk with Hilary a bit longer before we left. 

She keeps a nice inventory on hand on display in her studio. This vintage cabinet is full of hand woven towels!  The cushion in the foreground is being sent out to be reupholstered. It's not meant to be in the display LOL

Here is one of the rooms with workspace arranged to view out the windows as they weave. Hillary's friend and apprentice Lois is seated at the loom at the left working on towels. The loom at the right where Hillary was weaving is currently warped up for shawls. She does beautiful patterns with exotic threads like bamboo and silk and tencil and other elegant fibers. 

It was nice to meet Lois. She has been with Hilary for a number of years and weaves such beautiful towels with perfect straight selvages. There is a good number of them already rolled up and finished down on the cloth take-up beam. These are in red and green and white, just perfect for the upcoming holiday season shopping. 

Steve looked up and noticed the little glass bluebird on the windowsill. We have two of these at home in the kitchen. It made me smile. Such a perfect little farmhouse-y nicknack. Isn't this such a peaceful view?

The studio is definitely dog friendly.

 Willy makes himself at home 

and he is the honorary "Loom Doggy".

That darn Hilary gifted me with the choice of a towel from her array in the studio. It was hard to choose, but finally this pattern caught my eye. I will cherish it forever, and use it only for wonderful things like in a bread basket around muffins, or for pretty arrangements when having company. 

Steve honored us with taking the obligatory stand together and face the camera type moment. Of course, Willie felt left out and had to get into the action. 

We got ourselves roadworthy, and stowed away anything we had out overnight. Doesn't take us too long to get ready to hit the road. We thanked Hilary for her gracious hospitality and use of her electric service! PS as I am dictating this now as we are flying down the highway, I am noticing that again, our solenoid is working and our batteries are charging. Somewhere down the line we will swap it out with the new one we picked up a few days ago. 

Goodbye Hilary, until we meet again! 

HAPPY WEAVING! 

Oh ... Here is her blog post of our meeting:

http://crazyasaloom.blogspot.com/2023/08/surprise-visit.html?m=1

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