Butterfly Knits and Fine Handwovens by Helen Lay
Grass Valley, California

I started knitting in 2006 and started Butterfly Knits, making felted hats and purses. In 2009 I purchased a floor loom and am enjoying the creative process of weaving.

I find working with fiber exciting and rewarding, especially creating a one of a kind piece that will be enjoyed by it's new owner.

The following poem by C. Valentine Kirby describes as the title says:

What Art Means To Me ~

I feel within an impulse, perhaps that divine impulse which has moved all races, in all ages and in all climes, to record form the emotions that stir within.

I may model these emotions in clay, carve them in wood, hew them in stone, or forge them in steel. I may weave them in textiles, paint them on canvas or voice them in song; but whichever I do I must harken always to the song of the Lark and the melody of the forest and stream and respond to the color of the rose and the structure of the lily, so that my creation may be in accord with God's laws and the universal Laws of order, perfect fitness and harmony.

Moreover, I must make my creation good and honest and true, so that it may be a credit to me and live after I am dead, revealing of others something of the pleasure which I found in its making.

Then will my creation be Art, wether I be poet or painter, blacksmith or cobbler, for I shall have labored honestly and lovingly in the realization of an ideal.

To purchase or for more information, please email butterflyknits@sbbmail.com or call 530-272-4471.

~Helen