Side to side, Mary Freas’s hands glide. Her loom is light to the touch, like weaving through air. On the first floor of the Sunset Fiberworks studio, loom parts and pieces surround her, claiming every tabletop and shelf in the open living room and kitchen. Through the windows, the Yadkin Valley stretches into view, a mosaic of earth and poplars that’s particular to this part of Wilkes County.

Lucy Morgan. Photography courtesy of Jane Kessler Memorial Archives, Penland School of Craft

Mary’s newer looms are wider than the one in front of her today. She sits at a machine built in the 1930s for Lucy Morgan, founder of Penland School of Craft and great-aunt to Mary’s husband, John. Nearly a century later, its only real wear is from the Freases’ late dog, Belle. Despite chew marks on one of the cross pieces, the loom weaves as reliably as it did when Lucy hauled it up, down, and around the Foothills.

Having grown up in Rutherfordton, Mary has called these hills home for most of her life. She and her siblings spent their childhoods using the land to mold mud pots and craft bows and arrows. In 1963, she left for UNC Chapel Hill, where she met and married John. It wasn’t until her late 30s, while living in Cary, that she felt called to weaving, a craft that connected her to western North Carolina.

Mary shared her interest in the craft with John’s Aunt Helen, whose straightforward nature Mary had come to admire throughout the women’s close relationship. Eventually, Aunt Helen put her hands on her hips and said, “Mary, I have a loom I will give you, but only if you learn to weave first.” So Aunt Helen then sent Mary to Joanne Nolen, a friend and weaving instructor at Haywood Community College.

Mary stayed in Joanne’s guest room and spent her days weaving in the basement. Joanne guided her step-by-step at first, then left her to work alone. If Mary got stuck, she’d just call up to her teacher.

Colorful throws, dish towels, and scarves are the culminations of Mary’s years of weaving.  photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

“It took me a week. At the end, I had a 48-inch throw that I still use,” Mary says. “I realized later that she really taught me everything that I needed to know. Once you’ve got the fundamentals down, you can teach yourself the rest.”

When it was time for Mary to head back to Cary, Aunt Helen held up her end of the deal and gave her Lucy’s loom. Over the years, Mary made dish towels, shawls, ponchos, and scarves. When she and John returned to the Foothills in the early 2000s to settle on John’s family farm, it was for good. John built a studio with a downstairs workspace and an upstairs bedroom for students and visitors. In that studio, Mary weaves at Lucy’s loom, looking out over grazing cattle and gravel roads that wind through the Foothills.

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Lucy’s loom has been Mary’s primary tool for most of her weaving career. Lucy was a small woman, and her loom reflects her stature — it can only weave a 24-inch-wide piece, which shrinks down to a 21-inch-wide scarf or place mat. Made of light poplar wood, the loom was easy for Lucy to cart around in the trunk of her car. Even the treadles — the pedals that control the direction of the threads — sit closely together, well suited for someone with smaller feet.

The loom accompanied Lucy throughout Appalachia beginning in the 1930s. Born in 1889, Lucy knew western North Carolina as home, only leaving briefly for college and work. In 1920, she arrived in Penland to teach at the Appalachian School, founded by her brother Rufus. In January of 1923, Lucy accompanied a student to Berea College in Kentucky to help her settle in, and found that the region was home to a vibrant craft community. Like Mary later would, Lucy felt a calling; immersed in the art of weaving, she found inspiration.

Countless pieces have been woven on the nearly century-old portable loom that Mary Freas still uses — and affectionately calls “Aunt Lucy’s dog-and-pony show.” photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

Lucy knew that back in Penland, the community was one built around labor. Folks in the mountains relied on the land and each other. Often, a woman’s only means of income was selling extra butter and eggs. “Aunt Lucy was nothing if not independent,” Mary says.

Returning to Penland in the spring, Lucy brought weaving with her.

With her strong will and newfound skill set, Lucy soon proved the craft valuable to the community. She convinced the Appalachian School to support her growing coalition of weavers and began a weaving program. This eventually led to the founding of the Penland School of Craft in 1929. About a decade later, Lucy acquired her portable loom, which she carried into communities across Appalachia to spread her craft.

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The spirit that drove Lucy now motivates Mary. “I grew up in the mountains; the mountains are isolating. If you can’t do it yourself, you do without,” Mary says. “There’s a creativeness that probably comes from the fact that you have to do it. No one is going to show up at the front door with XYZ.”

Mary describes her looms as “musical,” a fitting description given that weaving drafts, which guide each part of the process, look a bit like musical staves. Just as a score lays out each note to create a melody, the drafts map out the steps for setting up a loom and weaving a specific pattern. Each aspect is planned, so when the side-to-side threads, or the weft, are woven through the threads that go from the front to the back of the loom, called the warp, a pattern emerges. Thread by thread, Mary uses a small tool called a shuttle to guide the weft through an open space in the warp, called the shed, then beats the new row into place. “When you’re good and in your groove, there’s a rhythm to it,” Mary says. “The loom is noisy: Clunk shimmy thump, clunk shimmy thump.”

In the early 2000s, Mary and John moved back to the Foothills. Today, they live, work, and teach in rural Wilkes County with their dogs, Bo and Gracie. photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

She says she’s tried to make every mistake possible, so she knows how to fix them. She encourages her students to take chances as well, instilling the notion that you can’t weave your way out of trouble. Students can come to Sunset Fiberworks for a day or a week to learn the craft or to experience that “I did this myself” moment.

Mary understands the pride that’s woven into the practice — a pride as intrinsic to Appalachian life today as it was when Lucy Morgan first arrived. Through the studio windows, the sky opens and illuminates the peaks and hollers of the Yadkin Valley. With the land resembling a woven tapestry of its own, it’s no wonder the Foothills call on those like Lucy and Mary to create.

Sunset Fiberworks
3249 Swaringen Road
Traphill, NC 28685
(336) 957-0918
sunsetfiberworks.com