My friend Irmgard and I have woven an intricate friendship.
It began 10 years ago on campus at a bicycle safety course. We immediately bonded, exchanging emails.
She was working in Penn State’s Entomology Department and I was a Master Gardener volunteer and recruited her to join our group. Over the years we’ve shared notes on bicycling, as well as growing avocado, fig, and Meyer lemon trees.
A year or so ago she and her husband bought a second house in Lewisburg (he works at Bucknell University) so she could set up a weaving studio. They wanted to re-do the landscaping and go native. I introduced her to my Lehigh Valley friend Sue, who runs Edge of the Woods Nursery. Irmgard made the trip and returned with her hatchback crammed with Sue’s native plants.
Enter my high school buddy, Caryl. We became reacquainted when she worked for a home nursing agency that helped my mom. Caryl and I caught up at our 50th high school reunion last summer and I think it was then that she mentioned inheriting her father’s weaving loom—but that she had no idea how to work it.
Somehow, the thread of Irmgard’s weaving studio tugged at my brain. I connected Caryl with Irmgard. Irmgard made a house call last fall. Caryl began weaving.
Being newly retired, Caryl and I decided it was time for a road trip to Lewisburg and Irmgard’s weaving studio. That’s what we did this week.
Irmgard gave us a tour of the mid-20th century parsonage, with beautiful bones and marvelous light, which she converted into a weaving studio.
I didn’t realize Irmgard’s passion would come with such a foreign vocabulary. She talked about shuttles and bobbins, warp and weft, treadles, heddles, and harnesses. Caryl seemed to follow along; I worked up an appetite.
Irmgard prepared a roasted cauliflower soup (from Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen by Yasim Khan). The soup was so good (and recipe, easy, Irmgard attests) that I placed an order for the cookbook when I got home. At least I am confident with my culinary vocabulary. The luncheon progressed with bread, cheese, and sharing of stories.
Caryl may have thought the weaving studio tour was over. Not me. I wanted a tour of the studio’s native plant gardens that Sue designed, and Irmgard and her husband installed. Since spring has barely made it to Central PA, we were looking at leafless saplings with fat buds and a few brown stalks left from fall, but just the names—Amelanchier, Fothergilla, Halesia, Clethera, Viburnum, Monarda, Liatris, Asclepias—created a technicolor vision in my mind.
And in the midst of the imagined greenery, I saw one of my favorite summer creatures, the yellow garden spider, weaving her web of zigzag stitches. Laurie Lynch
Spider Vocabulary Lesson: The yellow garden spider, Argiope aurantia, is called an orb weaver because she spins circular webs. While most spiders have two claws per foot, orb weavers have three claws per foot, allowing them to spin complex webs. The yellow garden spider is black with symmetrical patterns of yellow and has a host of nicknames, including Steeler spider, zigzag spider, zipper spider, and my personal favorite, writing spider.
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