The adventure continues…

First some housekeeping…

A number of you who are subscribers have written me that you aren’t getting notifications when I post a blog.  We knew this has been a problem but neither I nor my technical support husband has been available to actually look into the problem.  Between the month long trip to Istanbul and then the broken collarbone, well you just can’t get good help these days…  (Totally kidding Kevin, I love you!)

Identifying the problem and fixing it are two completely different things in the digital world.  It would appear once again, the trouble lies in the fact that there are just too many of you!  The software has a block now that prevents me from sending out more than 300 subscriber notices within an hour.  So the first three hundred of you got a notification and the rest did not.  Who knew…

There are many aps that my technical guru is exploring that will fix this goof, and hopefully all those who want to know when I post, will in a timely fashion.  Know I am really grateful that anyone cares that I spend my time writing this blog, and I want to make it easy for you my dear readers to access it.

And so the adventure continues…

When I have back to back trips like this, the tough part is not the teaching, that I love and can do in my sleep.  The tough part is the prep, ensuring I will have what I need, and that things that need to be shipped are done so, so that they are waiting for me when I arrive.  There is an enormous amount of prep for any workshop, including just the packing and hauling the suitcases to the airport.  But I do it, with minimal complaint because this is my job, but the stress level for me goes through the roof during this time.  One mistake can make the difference between a highly successful workshop and a complete nightmare.  I have a lot of back ups in place, but there is nothing like being the responsible party for every detail!  No one else to blame when it goes wrong.

That said, I made it to Louisville on what I now lovingly call, an uneventful flight.  That’s my judge of air travel.  Uneventful.  I think I mentioned in a previous blog post that immediate goals in any given day is that at the close I can say, “Uneventful”.  I’m getting to the age where events aren’t always a good thing.  No broken fences today, nothing so far to get in my way.  I shipped a couple more boxes to Wisconsin for my Sievers’ class, (I’m heading up on Wednesday), and shipped my entries along with my daughter’s pieces to the Blue Ridge Fiber Show in Asheville.  Banking for the month is almost done, and I actually mowed the front lawn.  The dogs are sleeping peacefully at my feet and haven’t gotten into trouble in the last 24 hours.  (Course we won’t mention here the decapitated rabbit they were eating when my husband discovered they were way too quiet outside on Saturday.  Removing a dead carcass one handed with a broken collarbone is a bit tricky.)

garbanzobeansI had a blast at the Louisville Chapter of the American Sewing Guild.  My hostesses were so much fun to be with, and excellent garment makers, and it was a real treat to play with them with fabrics, and garment ideas, and find out about things in the pattern and garment fabric industries that I didn’t know about.  We ate, and chatted and traded information and I learned all kinds of things, including how to pop off the shells of canned garbanzo beans thus removing the indigestible part and the fact that there are three free downloadable patterns on the Marfy website.  (For those not in the know, Marfy is an Italian pattern company, and it is my immediate goal, when I stop all this traveling, to start trying to sew with some Marfy patterns.  They are a bit more advanced than any American equivalent, since the patterns come with no seam allowances, and NO directions.)

The Friday night lecture was the one where I tell my life story as it relates to fiber.  It is always a treat for me to go back to my early days and see where I started and know where I ended up.  The response was warm and supportive.

ASGLouisville

The Saturday workshop was my color class, and it was entertaining for me to teach non weavers.  These are all women in a Sewing Guild, some do garments and some do quilts, but playing with yarn needs to translate to fabric.  I gave them a lot to think about, and above all, my goal in this class is to give permission and confidence.  It was truly wonderful when one of the participants at the end came up to me and said it was the best workshop she’d ever taken.  So here is a sampling of some of the fun exercises we did…

ASGColor1ASGColor2ASGColor3ASGColor4ASGColor5ASGColor7ASGColor6ASGColor8

Note to self, if you are going to use your cell phone to take pictures, make sure you turn on the flash. Otherwise most of them will be too blurry to use…

And for those who are wanting to see the progress on my sweater, since I can’t do anything clothing related in the studio on account of the fact that I’m not around, here is the latest photo.  This is an extreme variation on a C2Knits pattern, and the yarn is the bulky handspun I did with the leftover fleece from my felted coat, and alternating rows of angora/silk, purchased at a steep discount in a shop in central coast California way back a couple years ago. (I was with you Nancy Weber!) I had only eight 100 yard skeins, each in a different color, and about 600 yards of handspun.  Can I say how proud I am of myself that I have almost nothing left over and with a few starts and stops, I completely made this up as I went along.  I used the basic numbers from the C2Knits pattern and nothing else.  Sleeves are different, collar different, and of course, stockinette instead of garter stitch.

Sweater

I leave Wednesday on a 6am flight to Chicago and then on to Green Bay and then on to Washington Island and Sievers…  (more time to tie in all those ends…)

Stay tuned…

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Lora
Lora
September 22, 2014 5:22 pm

Funny how that sweater looks like a yarn wrapping! It’s lovely.

And as a former trainer who lived on the road, I totally agree with your assessment that the best airline flight (or any trip) is “uneventful.”

Marie
Marie
September 22, 2014 5:24 pm

Daryl, I think you may have surpassed me with that sweater. Fabulous.

Ginnie
Ginnie
September 22, 2014 8:06 pm

Hope you have room to bring that sweater to Washington Island. It may come in handy, and I want to see it ! ; )

Joan Ahern
Joan Ahern
September 23, 2014 7:14 pm

You finished the knitting just in time for Fall’s arrival! Boy it was cold last night. Really pretty.

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