Creative Space

Tiffany Allen and some of her wall hangings. | SUBMITTED

Tiffany Allen and Macramé: A Knotty Solution

By Peter Fergus-Moore

Tiffany Allen was a very busy woman. With a full-time career in property management, as well as being a young mother, she treasured times when she could just be out somewhere with members of her extended family. One such outing made for a profound change in her life.

“We were out walking on the shores of Lake Superior in 2016,” the Lakehead resident recalls, “and I noticed pieces of driftwood here and there. They were beautiful, so I started picking some up to hang in my home.”

“I had always enjoyed hanging plants and wall hangings,” Allen adds, “so around that time, I started noticing photos of macramé projects on social media.”

Macramé, from the Arabic maqramia, or “ornamental fringe,” has been practiced by human artisans for at least 40 centuries. Essentially, it is a form of knotting to produce two- and three-dimensional designs from strung yarn or rope. The two foundational knots of macramé are the familiar square (reef) knot and half-hitches, the latter being used in various combinations known to macramé practitioners as “hitching.” These two knots can be used to create intricate, spellbinding designs in the hands of artists. Finished designs, especially two-dimensional ones, are often hung from horizontal sticks so that their artistry is most easily seen and appreciated.

Intrigued by some of the more modern macramé project designs, Allen started to research these basic knots of macramé to see what was possible. One piece of driftwood and a ball of yarn later and Allen had created her first wall hanging. Encouraged by this accomplishment, she created more and more finished macramé pieces in a wide variety of colours, and even plunged into dyeing her own yarn with natural materials.

Creating a macramé hanging item calls for some careful mathematics. For a more intricate design with more knots, Allen needs to measure out yarn some 9x the length of the finished hanging. A simpler, less intricate design or one with more spacing between sets of knots comes in at 6x. Then there is the colour matching as well as that of the different thicknesses and qualities of different yarns.

Creating a macramé hanging item calls for some careful mathematics. For a more intricate design with more knots, Allen needs to measure out yarn some 9x the length of the finished hanging. | SUBMITTED

And while driftwood is generally easily found by taking a walk on a Lake Superior beach, macramé yarns are for the most part not available locally, to Allen’s disappointment.

“I order online, especially from North America, Australia, Stockholm,” she says. “In Canada, it’s mostly from suppliers in B.C. and Ontario.”

While the bulk of her orders are for unbleached cotton, she now has a good problem for an artisan to have:

“The possibilities for the colours now are endless,” she says. “Suppliers keep coming up with new ones all the time.”

In response to environmental concerns, manufacturers are also coming up with greener ways to make their products.

“A lot of the cotton yarn and rope we see now is made up of recycled or upcycled cotton,” she says. “That’s my preference.”

“One company,” Allen adds, “even takes the leftover waste bits of string and rope from the garment industry, breaks them down and spins out new string and rope from them.”

Macramé, from the Arabic maqramia, or “ornamental fringe,” has been practiced by human artisans for at least 40 centuries. | SUBMITTED

Manufacturers are also increasingly using sustainable materials such as jute, which was popular in the 1960s and has now resurfaced in popularity, and even bamboo fibre and linen. The differing plant fibres add to the complexity of texture possibilities for the macramé artisan.

“Cotton is the smoothest fibre and jute perhaps the rawest,” she explains, “with linen in between the two.”

So far, Allen’s work is doing well, to the point where she now mostly creates to fulfill specific customer orders. She also has a number of creations ready-made for craft shows, as well as demonstration pieces for another aspect of her creative outlet: teaching.

“I’m hoping to teach classes at the Goods & Co., market in the old Eatons building starting this summer,” she says. “And I’ve written a book to teach the world about macramé. I’m very passionate about macramé and I love doing it. I spend 10-15 hours a week on it, usually after my children are in bed for the night.”

Allen’s two young children have been caught up in their mother’s enthusiasm.

“My 4-year-old loves colourful wall hangings or feathers,” she says, “and my 2-year-old can say ‘macramé.’”

Tiffany Allen’s book, You Will Be Able to Macramé By the End of This Book, is available by pre-order for $27.99 CND, and available for purchase from July 5. To pre-order, visit: macrameanddriftwood.com.

The (Partial) Sinking of a Superior Schooner

Behind the Craft: By Matt Nesheim

The day before Christmas Eve, Matthew Brown was eating fish and chips at Fisherman’s Daughter Restaurant in Grand Marais. He looked out of the restaurant window at Hjørdis—the beloved sailing schooner and unofficial flagship of the harbor—at her winter berth. Something didn’t look right; she was riding low in the water. Very low. A life-long sailor and founder of the sailing program at North House Folk School, he would know. He ran over to the school store at North House and alerted Cindy Hansen, the only North House staff member working that day.

The Hjørdis gets an unscheduled lift in late 2021. | SUBMITTED

Hjørdis was built in the 1970s by Ken Woodward of Detroit Michigan. According to an article in The Daily Mining Gazette dated August 25, 1979, the build took Ken 6,000 hours over seven years working in his backyard. His day job was as a machinist for General Motors, so he knew how to work metal: the boat is constructed of corten steel and is based on the Thomas Colvin “Gazelle” design. He named it Hjørdis after his mother and launched it in June of 1979. Legend has it Ken and his wife cruised in the Bahamas for 10 years before selling the boat in Florida.

Randy Ellestad of Knife River bought the boat in 1990 and hauled it over-land the 1,700 miles to Lake Superior. He rerigged the boat to a gaff schooner, and it eventually ended up on the docks at the fledgling North House Folk School. Seeing an opportunity, North House purchased the vessel with the intent of providing daily sails and educational trips to destinations around the Lake, including the Apostle Islands, Isle Royale and the Slates, with Matthew Brown at the helm. Over the years, the vessel has taken out 1,000s of passengers and served as a platform for adult and youth sail training.

Hjørdis’ home port of Grand Marais lacks the infrastructure for hauling large boats. Hjørdis’ steel construction allows us to keep her in the water for a year or two at a time, while underwater aerators prevent ice damage to the hull. Every third year we run it down to Knife River where they have a lift with the capacity to haul the 10-ton vessel. Our system has worked for years. Until this winter.

The Hjørdis sailing on Lake Superior. | SUBMITTED

When I reached the docks on December 23rd, Hjørdis was riding at least three feet lower in the water than usual. I opened the hatch and found the main salon submerged, and the few items we had left in the boat floating around like rubber ducks in a bathtub. The diesel inboard and battery bank were completely underwater. Brown, current Hjørdis captain Bill Hansen, and I bought every electric sump pump we could find to start draining the water, but it wasn’t enough until we sourced a gas powered “trash pump” from local contractor Anton Moody. At 150 gallons per minute, we (mostly) dried it out. There was an audible trickle coming in from an invisible set of pin holes under a seal in the aft bilge. The onboard bilge pump must have either failed or been incapable of keeping up. With the help of Mark Gordon of Amicus Adventure Sailing and friend Matt Morris, we had a temporary fix by midnight and had a space heater and backup pump with a float switch rigged up. Merry Christmas.

Without a local haul-out facility, I called Superior-based Viant Crane and they ran up with a 110- ton crane and lifted Hjørdis out of the water less than a week later. (The crane got stuck in the Grand Marais Recreation Area Campground, but that’s a story for another day...) While she’s been out

of the water, we hand-cranked the water out of the cylinders, successfully fired up the engine, and gave the boat some additional upgrades. The masts got a fresh new paint job and we hosted a class that covered the traditional mast hoops in leather. Costs associated with the haul-out and repair were generously underwritten by grants from the Pachel Foundation and Carl and Verna Schmidt Foundation.

Mast hoops leathered by volunteers at North House. These hoops attach the sails to the masts. | SUBMITTED

As this article goes to print, we’re putting the finishing touches on bottom paint and mast repairs. Eric Schultz from Electroforge Welding in Two Harbors did a professional repair on the compromised stern-tube, and Hjørdisshould be back in service by early June, more seaworthy than ever. Next Christmas, trim the tree and wrap your presents, but mind the bilge too.

Matt Nesheim is the facilities director at North House Folk School, where traditional craft is taught on the shore of Lake Superior.