She loves to weave.

Melvenea Hodges is a teacher at Marshall school who also recently started a business called Tradition in Fabrics in South Bend, Indiana. (AP)
Ms. Hodges holds up a "skate" of cotton in South Bend, Indiana. (AP)
She works on her loom at her home. Ms. Hodges makes clothing out of cotton that she grows in her back yard. (AP)
Melvenea Hodges shows an outfit that she made out of cotton. (AP)
Bolls of cotton, open and ready to be harvested in Kansas. (AP)

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Where does cotton come from? Miss H. grows it in her South Bend backyard!

She cleans it. She spins it into yarn. She dyes it many colors.

She weaves the cotton yarns. She makes lovely scarves.

READ MORE: Melvenea Hodges says she got her love of fabrics from her great-grandmother and her grandmother. She started “braid” weaving when she was eleven. Now she grows her own cotton. Not all states allow people to grow cotton in their yards. The boll weevil is a bug pest that can ruin cotton crops. Have Mom check if it’s okay to grow your own cotton where you live. Proverbs 31 describes a woman who does many things to care for her household. Verse 19 says, “She puts her hands to the distaff (holds the fibers), and her hands hold the spindle (spinner).”