Linsey-woolsey is a coarse pioneer cloth woven with linen and wool, the linen forming the warp and the wool the weft or woof. The linen makes the cloth strong and lasting, the wool makes it warm, but because it was usually made from local fibers and dyed with available vegetable dyes, it was looked down upon by those wanting only new stuff. Now a cloth made of linsey-woolsey may have historic value. One unique aspect of linsey-wooley is that it can be repaired through felting. Felting is the process through which felt is made, by poking wool fibers with short barbed needles which force the kinky fibers of wool into a tight interlocking mass.
I have given some thought to the meaning of living in a small town. Linsey-woolsey is a term that applies. When first arriving in a new place you rest upon the surface of community like a patch. After some years, provided you are like wool and have some personal warmth, you become woven in, felted into the warp and weft. Your integration in to community may take a bit of poking with sharp needles.
Time if you let it has a way of removing your coarse edges and working you into the depth of the cloth.
As a culture, we are buzzing like electrons, skipping from one orbit to the next, and I would like to offer to my readers a strange notion. We live in a facebook, blogger age in which we can befriend or be befriended by others who will always remain unknown to us. It demands nothing of us but high speed internet and a device of some kind. But there is a real world out there where encounters can run deep.
Eureka Springs is a linsey-woolsey kind of place. And my wish is that we may each find a place like it.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.
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