The People Behind the Bread: Leigh Skowronski

We know each other through bread. We talk about fermentation, compare crumb shots, share the occasional baking disaster, and celebrate when somebody finally gets the loaf they’ve been chasing.

But I’ve been thinking about something. Who are the people sitting around this kitchen table when they’re not baking?

I’d like us to get to know each other a little better. And I couldn’t think of a better person to start with than Leigh Skowronski.

It started with a surprise in the mail

Back in August, Leigh asked me for my mailing address. She wanted to send me something.

Of course I asked what it was. She wouldn’t tell me.

By delivery day, I was sitting on the porch waiting for the mail truck like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. And when I opened the package, there was this beautiful handwoven kitchen towel. Leigh had made the fabric herself, on a loom.

I told her it was too beautiful to use. I’d hang it up where I could admire it.

Leigh had other ideas. She told me she’d be “extremely annoyed” if I didn’t use it.

She explained that her cotton towels actually get better and more absorbent with use. Dry your hands. Dry your dishes. Wash it like any other cotton towel. She wasn’t making something to sit on a shelf. She was making something to live in a kitchen.

So I used it. And she was right.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect. My bread-baking mentor, Mr. Sherman, always kept a towel draped over his left shoulder. For years I tried to do the same, but mine never stayed there. Leigh’s does. Every time I reach for it, I think of the woman who wove it and the man who helped teach me to bake.

The other side of Leigh

Leigh describes herself as a retired librarian, a weaver, and a sourdough enthusiast. In our Academy, I know her as someone who asks thoughtful questions, tries recipes, and notices the details. She’s worked on focaccia, bánh mì, scones, and more. She’s also helped me catch a few things we needed to correct.

Outside the kitchen, she’s been working with thread and cloth for a long time. I found her credited in the November/December 1993 issue of Handwoven magazine for a project featuring woven gift bags for wine bottles. That’s more than three decades of creative work to look back on.

And her experience isn’t locked away in old magazines. Leigh has shared an illustrated lesson in ice dyeing through the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild, showing other makers how to experiment with color and fabric. The guild also lists an upcoming class taught by Skowronski on sewing handbags with handwoven scraps.

Look at those looms. All those threads have to work together before a single useful piece of cloth comes off the machine. It makes me think of baking. You can learn the mechanics, but there’s still something that happens between practiced hands and familiar materials.

Color, ice, and a little bit of chemistry

While putting this story together, I came across something else Leigh has shared with the weaving community. She wrote an entire hands-on guide to ice dyeing for the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild.

Here’s the idea: you arrange fabric or yarn over a raised rack, cover it with ice, sprinkle dye powder on top, and wait. As the ice melts, color travels through the material in patterns you couldn’t draw by hand. Leigh walks readers through the setup, the washing-soda pretreatment, how to handle the dye, and what to do when things don’t turn out quite as expected. She even documents experiments with layers of yarn and dyed warps.

I had to smile reading it. The careful preparation, the chemistry, the surprises, the willingness to try again. You could replace the dye with flour and we’d be right back in our kitchens.

Meet Geraldine

And then Leigh sent along pictures of Geraldine the Giraffe.

She made Geraldine at a fiber arts workshop. Not weaving this time, but another way to play with fabric, color, and texture. Just look at the expression on that face. The blue eyes, the ears, that magnificent patchwork coat.

Geraldine the Giraffe, Leigh’s creation from a recent fiber arts workshop.

I love that someone who has spent so many years making beautiful things still goes to a workshop and comes home excited about trying something different. We could all use a little of that spirit.

Watch her work

Leigh shared a short video showing the making of handwoven Christmas towels. The towels were woven in 2021 with cotton on a four-shaft Norwood Workshop loom. It’s one thing to see a finished towel and another to watch how it comes together.

There’s a story behind every apron

Leigh joined the Academy in January. I knew her as a fellow baker. A generous, curious, encouraging one. I didn’t know there was a whole world of looms, thread, dyed fabric, and a giraffe named Geraldine behind her sourdough posts.

That’s exactly why I want to do more of these spotlights.

We’ve got teachers, artists, veterans, gardeners, musicians, and people doing all sorts of interesting things around this kitchen table. I want to know who you are beyond the loaf.

Leigh, thank you for your towel, your friendship, and for sharing this other part of your life with us. I really am using that towel. You won that argument.

Henry Hunter

Perfection not required. Progress is.