What a wild and wonderful week I’ve had at the American Sewing Guild National Conference in Atlanta. Though I long for my own bed, I’ve been on the road for so long I rarely get to actually sleep in my own bed, I was so glad for this opportunity to attend, and to teach for the American Sewing Guild conference. To say this is a completely different audience then I am accustomed too would be an understatement, yet there was still sameness about a group of strong talented women who share a passion of fiber. And there was a comfortable feel to the conference, the fashion show, the speakers, the vendor hall, soon I felt like I fit right in.
This is my first experience teaching for the American Sewing Guild, and I will say it was really really positive. An extremely organized conference, there was a rhythm to this event that never seemed to miss a heartbeat. Every bit of the conference occurred in the Atlanta Hilton, a gracious and accommodating venue, and all the volunteers and staff at the ASG worked hard at their jobs, no detail was missed. I did have to change classrooms, but that was to be expected because all four of my classes had very different needs. Since I was staying right above the exhibit halls and classroom space, it wasn’t hard to store my teaching materials in my hotel room.
The ASG provided breakfast and lunch meetings every day of the conference, great opportunities for more inspiration like Connie Crawford’s breakfast talk on the 2010-2011 fashion forecast. The fashion show was well done, I almost wished I hadn’t been modeling, I would have loved to have sat in the audience. It was open to everyone, there were 76 entries, and some pretty proud models. Most garments were modeled by the maker, and there were wedding gowns, and antebellum costumes, celebrating Atlanta’s heritage, there were all kinds of garments on all kinds of shapes, and it was a pleasure to mill around back stage getting a close up look at all the fine details. I think my two garments were pretty much the only hand woven garments there, and that was quite the novelty. I’m not use to that. I’m use to being part of a crowd of handweavers who are all wearing gorgeous textiles and no one is surprised that you wove everything you’ve had on at the conference.
The first class I taught on Thursday was particularly special to me, I shipped a bunch of Inkle Looms and taught a one day workshop titled “Weave your own Trim“. The inkle loom is perfect for non weavers to begin to play with the medium, instant gratification, by lunch time they were all weaving away on their bands, chatting about practical applications for making Chanel type braids and French Passementerie. They picked up Pick-Up techniques very quickly, and I sold eleven looms. So there are eleven new weavers out there! I’m so proud.
I even discovered YLI decorative Pearl Crown Rayon Serger thread, in miniature cones, perfect for fine bands and braids. They have a Candlelight Metallic yarn as well. There were also some wonderful yarns imported from Germany, fine perle cottons, and embroidery cottons, on very small skeins, perfect for Inkle Weaving, all handpainted in joyous names relating to famous painters. I have one called Frida! The yarns are from Tentakulum and available from the YLI website.
My Friday morning lecture was particularly special to me. I gave a talk on the collaborative process and my experience working with Loretta Phipps whom I had never met using yarns I would have never picked on the 2008 Convergence Challenge in Tampa Bay. Loretta and I designed and created a runway ensemble which has been traveling since the 2008 conference, this is the first I’ve seen it since June more than two years ago. I had since made a dress from the leftover scraps from the coat, and I wore it to the presentation, and the actual garments, with many thanks to the HGA, made it to the conference having been on tour with the Original Sewing and Quilt Expos.
I had a full class for my afternoon lecture on Seams and Edge Finishes, I was worried that participants from the Sewing world would find the material too basic, doesn’t everyone know how to do a French seam or a Hong Kong seam, doesn’t everyone know how to do a mitered corner on a bound edge? I was thrilled when so many participants came up to me and thanked me for my full color handout, slide for slide of the presentation, and for my thorough details explaining each of the techniques, and I got a hug from someone who wasn’t sure what Stitch in the Ditch meant, I was happy to explain it to her, we all come from different backgrounds and levels and training, and I was so pleased at all the kind words for my presentation.
The vendor hall was so different than what I’m use to at handweaving conferences. It was packed full of fabrics, independent pattern designers, sewing machine vendors, irons, cutting mats, pattern making software, and stuff for embellishment of just about anything you can fit under a sewing machine. This was craft project central! It was colorful, full of excited women, and sometimes hard to maneuver through the aisles. I stopped at Linda Lee’s booth, The Sewing Workshop, she asked to see the tote bag I wetfelted, stitched with Ultrasuede trim, and wove the Inkle trim for the handle. The pattern is from The Sewing Workshop, called the Daily News Bag.
I also spent some time at Susan Lazear’s booth Cochenille Design Studio. Susan attended Convergence in Albuquerque, and was one of the designers from the 2010 Challenge paired with Robyn Spady. Susan is the creator of “Garment Designer” software, and she spent some time demonstrating the product. I was very impressed by the software, I had had some earlier experience years ago with software from Dress Shop 2, and hadn’t found it very helpful. We’ve come a long way with computers, and I took the plunge and invested in the Garment Designer software taking advantage of the show bundle price. This software will also create the patterns for knitted garments, my jaw just fell on the ground when I saw the demo on that.
My last class was a fun hands on project, this was the first time I’ve taught this particular project and I worried about the timing. It was perfect. The students had four hours, and they jumped right in and most finished their mats with enough time to spare.
It was really fun to see all the bright fabrics and bias tubes come together at the end.
I am pretty exhausted. And I only have a week to get ready for my five day class at Harrisville Designs in New Hampshire. I hit the ground running this morning, dealing with the dead plants, from no rain and no water, nearly empty ponds and fountains, dealing with trash and recycling, yard waste and laundry. The drain on the airconditioning unit backed up, causing water damage in one of my ceilings, I managed to get that unplugged, and the one good thing about 100 degree temps with no rain in site, there is a chance the exterior walls will actually dry out and not mildew. I’m crossing my fingers.
Meanwhile, the flight home to Newark was easy and uneventful. I sat tucked in my little seat by the window on an Embraer Jet, watching the sun set, finishing up knitting my first pair of socks. I just have to graft the toes together, and I’m ready for winter. I’ve already put in an order to Webs for more sock yarn…
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Largely because I want a record of these lyrics, and because I’ve never tried to embed a YouTube video into my blog, I thought I’ve give you a post Convergence treat. Soprano Emma Kirby sings John Dowland’s “Fine Knacks for Ladies” just so you know what the melody should sound like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dabqyiJZN0c
Fine Knacks for Ladies
Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new,
Good pennyworths but money cannot move,
I keep a fair but for the fair to view,
A beggar may be liberal of love.
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true.
Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again,
My trifles come as treasures from my mind,
It is a precious jewel to be plain,
Sometimes in shell the Orient’s pearls we find.
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain.
Within this pack pins, points, laces and gloves,
And divers toys fitting a country fair,
But in my heart, where duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, Court’s brood, a heav’nly pair.
Happy the man that thinks of no removes.
With liberties taken by Daryl Lancaster & Amy Morris, Convergence 2010
Fine yarns for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new,
Good pennyworths but bring your plastic too,
Bright colored yarns, and looms for all to view,
A weaver may fall thoroughly in love.
Though I don’t need more stash, I shop on cue.
Workshops and lecture, ideas flow again,
Surprises that we least expect to find,
Cloth from my loom no longer to be plain,
All my designs are treasures from my mind.
When inspiration comes, excitement reigns.
Draft, threading, treadling, sett, beat, structure too,
And divers toys that make a fabric fair,
But in my heart, where threads may not undo,
Sometimes I must unweave because I care.
Skipped wefts and broken threads, the cloth holds true.
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And in the final installment of Kevin and Daryl’s Excellent New Mexico Adventure, we leave our weary couple riding off into the sunset, literally, with some of the most spectacular evening skies they have ever seen. They are the kind of skies that make you pull over into the nearest parking lot, or side road, or even the shoulder of the road because it is too risky to keep driving. Talk about distraction!
So Wednesday morning, my wonderful vacation partner and husband Kevin, flew back to New Jersey for something like 36 hours before boarding a plane for Riyadh. He is still there, in Saudi Arabia, and due back for a few days in mid August.
Meanwhile, Convergence begins! Like I said, no cameras allowed in most of the venues, so I left mine in my purse, you’ll have to be content with descriptions.
I spent Wednesday morning previewing all of the fashion show garments. I get to carefully look up inside, try on if necessary, touch and read about and generally familiarize myself with as much of the details of the garments as I can. The fashion show was that night, and the garments would then be installed in the middle of the night, into a gallery setting. This would be my only opportunity to preview the garments alone, and I would be lecturing about them on Saturday morning with a group of 50 participants. I’ve been doing this technical critique for the last six Convergence’s and many other conference fashion shows in between. I love doing it, there is never enough time, but each body of work gives me new and interesting things to discuss, and this was one of the strongest. I’ve seen a lot of fashion shows, and a lot of fashion show garments. There was a consistency in the overall Southwest theme of the show, the color palettes, and the silhouettes presented a tight point of view from the judges. It was an original and technically proficient body of work, and I was pleased to have had two pieces of my own included for exhibit.
The fashion show was fun. There were lighting difficulties, using a stage instead of a runway, a stage with a strongly lit back wall, as beautiful as it was, created back lighting, and I’m guessing the models were too far forward of the stage to be properly lit from the front. Usually there are spot lights for those sort of things, but there weren’t any in this production. The models were lovely, and seemed to be enjoying the garments, there were rumors of one of the models falling right before the production started and breaking her arm, but whoever was back stage in charge, pulled it off, without a hitch, substituting another model, and no one was the wiser.
There was a Fiber Trust reception back in the exhibits after the fashion show, and I was able to see all of my pieces in the other exhibits hung in a gallery like setting, and see the work of the other instructors, as well as the juried exhibits. I did get one photo on the way to the reception, two of my favorite people, John Mullarkey, from the St. Louis Guild of card weaving fame, and Angela Schneider from the recent Mississippi trip, where I taught a jacket workshop while dodging tornadoes. Both were wearing their “Daryl Jackets” from workshops with me.
And so I crawled into bed Wednesday night, having shared the evening with my best buddy and roommate Robyn Spady, who had already finished the first day of her three day workshop with 31 participants in a Round Robin, and passed out from sheer exhaustion. I had done my best to make sure everything I had control of would run as smoothly as possible. The rest was completely out of my hands.
Thursday morning began the marathon, I had two three hour lectures, one on Color and Inspiration, and one on multiple thread warping techniques titled Warp Fast, I had procured equipment from the vendor hall for demo purposes, and most of the students had pre purchased the handout from my website since the proofing error in the brochure meant I couldn’t provide one in the class. It turns out I was the one who missed the error, and for that I am embarrassed and apologetic. I am usually really really good at making sure details like that don’t get by me. On this one I goofed. In spite of all the challenges and large numbers of students, I was delighted with the response and how well the classes went. I want to send a huge thank you to the HGA for giving me one of the best classrooms I’ve ever worked with. I had a large neutral unbroken wall for projecting my presentations, and plenty of chairs for the large lectures, and plenty of tables for the hands on sessions. The temperature in the room stayed consistent, not too hot, not too cold, and the lighting was flexible enough to dim for PowerPoint presentations, but stay bright enough for those who wanted to follow in their handout, take notes, or just knit.
Friday I had another pair of three hour sessions, one in Closures, ways to close a handwoven garment, and another in Website Design. My brain was starting to fry… I can’t imagine how the students felt, but watching their faces, they all seemed to stay awake and alert, and I did my best to entertain, and keep them in good humor, actually we were occasionally rolling on the floor laughing out loud, because listening to anybody for three hours straight can be really painful!
Saturday morning was my technical critique, and that went way better than I could have ever dreamed. Huge thank you’s to all who helped me pull it off. It was definitely a team effort, I couldn’t have done it alone. Saturday afternoon was another three hour lecture, this one on Seams and Edge Finishes. There were public appearances at the Weavolution booth, selling and signing my books, and there were breakfast lectures one of which I actually got to attend, with gallery owner Jill Heppenheimer of the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery. There were dinners, which we signed up for ahead of time, and another thank you to the HGA for realizing that there were not a lot of opportunities to dine around the convention center, and for thinking to provide as many meals as possible to those who wanted them without the hassle of finding a restaurant. It seems the Hyatt and the surrounding areas largely cater to the courthouse, keeping hours based on the courthouse in session. Subway if you can believe it, was closed on the weekends. How perfectly odd…
Sunday, I spent the whole day teaching a workshop in Inkle Loom Weaving. I have to give it to the students for sticking with me until the bitter end, they wove their little hearts out, most of them were able to understand pick up work by mid afternoon, and my two star students who grasped the concept immediately, had never woven before. I just got the loveliest thank you note I’ve ever read in the mail today from one of my students, I can’t tell you what it means when someone feels so inspired that they actually sit down and write an old fashioned thank you note.
I did manage to find some down time at the conference, one of my friends from Southern California, fiber and felting enthusiast Amy Morris, and I would disappear in the evenings and play music. I brought my alto recorder, and Amy, who has a lovely voice, sang along as I played some wonderful Baroque pieces, some John Dowland from the 1500’s and some French songs, there was even one attributed to Henry VIII. We even spent time with our heads together on the trip back from the Ghost Ranch in Santa Fe, re-writing the words to Dowland’s “Fine Knacks for Ladies”, retitling it “Fine Yarns for Ladies”. We laughed ourselves silly. Thanks Amy for always finding me when I needed help the most!
So, here are some of my impressions of Convergence. The numbers were huge. I heard more than 2000 attendees, more than 400 first timers. There were young people, and there were those that have been coming to Convergence since the beginning of time. A special shout out to Eva Walsh from the Orlando guild who celebrated her 88th birthday taking two classes with me on Thursday. I want to be Eva when I grow up, still taking classes and attending Convergence when I’m 88.
Whenever you have that many people in one place, there are bound to be complaints. There are expectations that can’t always be met, and there are last minute changes and issues that come up, and everyone can get overloaded and tired and cranky, and in spite of it all, HGA pulled off a major event, for the most part seamless, and considering that the entire conference was organized and run by almost all volunteers who have given up two years of their lives, this was really really well done. The exhibits were classy, the work inspirational, the classrooms adequate, in my case exceptional. The vendor hall was not as full with all of the usual players, Schacht, Webs, Louet, they were all missing, but these are difficult times and it is really really costly to ship all kinds of looms and equipment to vendor halls across the country and sometimes across the border, and many of the vendors are pulling back and rethinking their presence there. It is a shame, but understandable.
There was a fresh enthusiasm everywhere, though I will say I was locked in a classroom for most of it, hiding in the evenings to save my voice, so I am probably not the best to evaluate the mood of the crowd. I came back energized and inspired, the tours on the front end of the conference opened up my world, the lectures were interesting and gave me some new material to think about, and I walked away seeing a future for handweaving and for the HGA. I appreciate their tolerance of my occasional bouts of diva-ness…
I wish I could say I arrived home to a well earned rest. Sadly I have one week to retool, reclaim my house from the National Guard who took up residence in my basement while we were gone, work with the house painters who have had control over the exterior of my house for a month, (doing a spectacular job I might add), and get ready for the American Sewing Guild National Conference in Atlanta, I leave on Thursday. Yep, that would be three days from now…
So I cranked up the printer, started on the handouts, adjusted lectures for the audience, and built a whole new hands on workshop making a pieced mat. I shot the production photos, created the new handout, made a couple of samples, and shipped all the looms for the inkle weaving class and the handouts for those classes that required them (one has 66 participants) off to the Hilton in Atlanta.
Oh, and the socks? I’m slowly and steadily reaching the end, who would have thought, I’m even looking around for more sock yarn to make another pair.
I had the foresight to actually knit both socks at the same time, so the second sock is just a few hours behind the first one. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to finally make a pair of socks and understand how the heel turns and the sock is shaped to the foot. Thanks Ann, for getting me through the gusset!
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When last we left our two adventurers, they were chugging along on a narrow gauge scenic railroad crisscrossing the New Mexico/Colorado border. Thursday morning of the trip, brought a wonderful breakfast at the San Geronimo and then a quick load up of the car, and off to the Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs and Spa.
OK, I could have spent the entire trip here. Forget the knitting. We arrived in time for an 11:00am yoga class, I was told at the desk that the class was held in the yoga yurt. I quickly found the yurt, across the parking lot, it isn’t hard to miss a yurt, and when I opened the door and entered I was surprised to find tables and students and what looked like a Navajo Weaving class. One of the students approached me and told me the yoga class had moved to an adjacent building, but I was of course intrigued that I fell upon a weaving class. Navajo weaver Pearl Sunrise was teaching a five day class in Navajo Weaving techniques, through the Taos Art School. Now I know what I want to do when I grow up, take weaving classes in a yurt at a mineral springs spa. Could that be any closer to heaven? I loved interacting with the weavers, we crossed paths at meals, and I was thrilled that the Taos Art School arranged something so spiritual in such a restful centering place.
My husband and I had scheduled massages, OMG… We wandered in and out of all the different mineral pools, each featuring a different mineral content. We sweated in the steam room and the sauna, and went back into the pools. We even smeared ourselves and each other with mud, and baked until it was dry. This was a seriously cool place to vacation. Oh, and the yoga class was excellent! After dark, my husband had booked a private pool, with a fireplace, and we bathed in the dark and watched the stars come out, one by one, until the entire night sky was filled with tiny points of twinkling light. I don’t think I’ve every seen the Milky Way so vivid. We certainly don’t get stars like that in New Jersey.
Friday we headed south, and met up with a river guide, and hopped onto a raft, in full protective gear, and had a wonderful trip down the Rio Grande, floating, drifting, and madly paddling through some class 2 and 3 white water rapids. It was a blast.
We managed to make it to Bandelier National Monument before it closed to see the ruins of the Ancient Pueblo people’s cliff dwellings. They were haunting, I felt like I was in a very sacred space, I wanted to whisper, and the cliffs whispered back.
Saturday we drove west of Albuquerque to see the Petroglyph National Monument. OK, here’s the thing. I have a couple of teens. There are three of them around age 21 that live in my basement. I can just picture them climbing up the cliffs, and hanging out smoking something having a few beers and scratching some graffiti on a bunch of rocks, like the old “Kilroy was here” or Class of 2010, or E.L loves J.G. The ancient Puebloans had no written language. They used symbols and story telling was an important part of their communication. Can you just picture a bunch of teens around 1300, climbing up the basalt boulders and sitting around smoking something having the Puebloan equivalent of a Bud, and scratching images in the rocks? I found it really hard not to snicker as I read signs talking about the sacred mysteries of the petroglyphs and their unknown meanings and the importance of the 20,000 documented images to the ancient Pueblo People.
We left the Petroglyph Monument and headed east to Sandia Peak. The world’s longest tram runs up to the peak, and there is some fantastic hiking and views that will take your breath away. At the peak, you can see 11,000 square miles. My husband did most of the hiking across the ridge. I wandered through an inner trail through the woods, and decided that hiking at 10,600 feet with no water was not in my best interest, and turned back. I happily hung out at the tram station and listened to my book on tape wishing I hadn’t left my knitting in the bag in the car at the base. It was beautiful, and I know my husband had a wonderful hike, we could still send text messages, and that allowed me to keep abreast of his progress. 
About an hour and a half into his hike, he sent me this photo via text, swarms of hummingbirds, so tame they would land on your finger, allowed him to capture this amazing photograph.
And so we ended up Sunday morning at the Convention Center in Albuquerque to board a bus along with other Convergence attendees to head back to Santa Fe and a tour of Ghost Ranch. Famed painter Georgia O’Keefe spent her summers at the ranch painting some of her most exquisite images, and the tour guide pointed out some of the subject matter along with reprints of some of her paintings. It was all pretty spectacular. We spent the night at the ranch, it is now a Presbyterian retreat center. It has some wonderful hiking trails, and of course a labyrinth. I want a labyrinth in my back yard.
On Tuesday, my wonderful husband volunteered himself to help move in the vendors for Convergence, he has had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and was quickly named the “Dock Master”. Meanwhile I boarded another bus to the Santa Fe opera house sitting next to my friend Ann from Michigan who is quite the expert at knitting socks, and she helped me work out the gusset so I could speed along on the foot of the sock. By now the amazing views seem normal and I concentrated on my socks allowing those who haven’t already spent time in the state claim the window seats.
The bus first took us to three local handweavers’ studios, Jennifer Moore, James Koehler, and Rebecca Bluestone. Of course their homes/studios were magazine perfect, in beautiful southwest architecture, with lovely gardens, and no clutter. Each of the artists was most gracious, and welcoming, and shared some of their philosophy and creativity with us. I was impressed by how focused each artist was in style and content of their work. Their stashes represented only the materials they use for their very specific work, Jennifer owned two looms, Rebecca one, and James had a number of looms in his studio, but they were mostly for his numerous apprentice/students. He demonstrated some tapestry techniques on his very large loom, it was big enough for the entire group to gather around.
The opera house was magnificent. We did brisk walk thru’s of the costume and scene shops, the wig shop, and the accessories shop. We spent a little more time in one of the climate controlled costume vaults. We found out that the more elaborate costumes were cleaned nightly with one part vodka to two parts water. Who knew? Of course no cameras were allowed, so I didn’t even bother to bring mine along. I have to say, this is the first time I’ve ever been able to attend tours related to Convergence conferences, and these were really well planned with wonderful things to see, and my head was already exploding with ideas and inspiration and the conference hadn’t even started.
Stay tuned for my take on Convergence, it won’t have any photos, since photos aren’t allowed in any of the exhibits.
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I’m going to have to do this post in installments. I realize it has been over two weeks since my last post, but really, there was no way I could have found the time to write.
First let me say I had a fabulous two weeks in New Mexico. The Land of Enchantment drew me in and I loved every minute of it.
My husband found so many things to photograph that I had to cull more than 2000 photos to find the key shots to represent the best of what we did.
The entire vacation was planned by my wonderful husband, and I contributed nothing. May I say my husband has a second career ahead of him as a travel planner? I am so very grateful for all his research and hard work, I was too busy preparing for Convergence, and I’m really grateful he allowed me that time.
I learned many things on this trip.
There are some things in life that just can’t be photographed. They are too big, too vast, too fleeting, too mind bending to even wrap my brain around. New Mexico is one of them. The vistas, the gorges, the colors, the night skies, the rain in the distance, the rainbows that appeared drifting up from the desert floor.
That said, my photographer husband took more than 2000 photos and some of them are postcard quality.
We flew into Albuquerque on the 12th, rented a car, and immediately headed to Santa Fe. We probably didn’t do justice to Santa Fe, we were there wandering around the plaza for a couple of hours, and ended up eating in an outdoor cafe/restaurant, listening to music on the square, and enjoying the dry desert heat. The restaurant was called the Anasazi, and we learned on the trip that Anasazi is actually a politically incorrect term for the ancient Pueblos. Anasazi is actually
the Navajo term for ancient enemy. Who knew…
Tuesday morning we made the trek to Taos. I was enchanted with Taos. Kevin had read about a church in Taos that had just been remudded, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but he found it and it was breathtaking. The Church was called the San Francisco de Asis, St. Francis of Assisi.
Kevin found a bed and breakfast called the San Geronimo Lodge. It was really hidden, and it took us awhile to find it nestled back in the hills. I loved the decor, the artwork, the fact that it wasn’t airconditioned, and that they had a spiritual walk, around the property that had fifteen stops for meditation, small sitting areas with words that made you reflect and meditate, and they led you into a final labyrinth. I walked the entire thing.
We used this B&B as a base for a couple of days, and had some wonderful adventures. We found the Rio Grande Gorge, Rt. 64 cuts west across the state from Taos and the vista is flat and unassuming until you suddenly come to a gorge with a sheer drop hundreds of feet down, and the road just continues right across the gorge as if nothing out of the ordinary has come to pass in the landscape.
I managed to walk part way across the bridge. My husband sprinted ahead and took a few hundred photos of this spectacular hole in the ground. After awhile, I crept back to the car, my vertigo issues starting to abate, and I happily sat and knitted my pair of socks and waited for him to return. He even found some grazing long horn sheep at the river’s edge. I was happy just looking at the photos afterward. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights?
I’m going to interject here, just a bit of where I’m coming from on this trip. I live in New Jersey. A born and bred Jersey girl for more than 50 years. OK, so I was actually born in Pennsylvania, but it was near the Jersey border around Philadelphia and we moved to Jersey when I was five. I’ve always prided myself on living in one of the original thirteen colonies. George Washington has slept in any building that is still standing from the 1700’s. He crossed the Delaware here, we were a major play in the Revolutionary war, heck, the history of the US started here so to speak. Or at least I thought so until we went to the Taos Pueblo. It seems this amazing beautiful complex has been inhabited for more than a thousand years. With a people who still live there, without electricity, without running water, who don’t take government handouts, and are really really proud of their heritage. The ancient Pueblos have a history and a culture I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. The structures came from the mud of the earth, with walls so thick upon entering you’d swear there was air conditioning. A young Pueblo gentleman, about my son’s age was our guide. He goes to the University in the fall/winter to study alternative medicine. He is proud of his heritage. I feel like an interloper.
Wednesday we got up early and headed north crossing the border into Colorado. We boarded the Cumbres Toltec Scenic Railroad, in a Parlor Car which is sort of the equivalent of first class, this is the highest and longest narrow gauge scenic railroad in America. I sat with my knitting needles and just wondered at how vast and how spectacular the American landscape can be. This little train climbed through a series of switchbacks up thousands of feet, criss crossing the Colorado/New Mexico border something like eleven times.
We passed fields of beautiful colorful Indian Paintbrush, Lupines, and sagebrush. We entered forests of Aspen. And we traveled along a three foot track hanging on the edges of the most beautiful cliffs, looking down into ancient gorges, rock formations, and never ending vistas.
Can I say this was the perfect excursion for my husband and me? He took photos for six hours straight, from the train station in Antonito, all the way to Osier and back, and I sat happily and watched the vistas pass before me and I knit.
All of this and it is only Wednesday. Stay tuned for Kevin and Daryl’s excellent New Mexico adventure part 2…
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The ASG provided breakfast and lunch meetings every day of the conference, great opportunities for more inspiration like Connie Crawford’s breakfast talk on the 2010-2011 fashion forecast. The fashion show was well done, I almost wished I hadn’t been modeling, I would have loved to have sat in the audience. It was open to everyone, there were 76 entries, and some pretty proud models. Most garments were modeled by the maker, and there were wedding gowns, and antebellum costumes, celebrating Atlanta’s heritage, there were all kinds of garments on all kinds of shapes, and it was a pleasure to mill around back stage getting a close up look at all the fine details. I think my two garments were pretty much the only hand woven garments there, and that was quite the novelty. I’m not use to that. I’m use to being part of a crowd of handweavers who are all wearing gorgeous textiles and no one is surprised that you wove everything you’ve had on at the conference.
I even discovered YLI decorative Pearl Crown Rayon Serger thread, in miniature cones, perfect for fine bands and braids. They have a Candlelight Metallic yarn as well. There were also some wonderful yarns imported from Germany, fine perle cottons, and embroidery cottons, on very small skeins, perfect for Inkle Weaving, all handpainted in joyous names relating to famous painters. I have one called Frida! The yarns are from Tentakulum and available from the YLI website.
My Friday morning lecture was particularly special to me. I gave a talk on the collaborative process and my experience working with Loretta Phipps whom I had never met using yarns I would have never picked on the 2008 Convergence Challenge in Tampa Bay. Loretta and I designed and created a runway ensemble which has been traveling since the 2008 conference, this is the first I’ve seen it since June more than two years ago. I had since made a dress from the leftover scraps from the coat, and I wore it to the presentation, and the actual garments, with many thanks to the HGA, made it to the conference having been on tour with the Original Sewing and Quilt Expos.
The vendor hall was so different than what I’m use to at handweaving conferences. It was packed full of fabrics, independent pattern designers, sewing machine vendors, irons, cutting mats, pattern making software, and stuff for embellishment of just about anything you can fit under a sewing machine. This was craft project central! It was colorful, full of excited women, and sometimes hard to maneuver through the aisles. I stopped at Linda Lee’s booth, The Sewing Workshop, she asked to see the tote bag I wetfelted, stitched with Ultrasuede trim, and wove the Inkle trim for the handle. The pattern is from The Sewing Workshop, called the Daily News Bag.
I am pretty exhausted. And I only have a week to get ready for my five day class at Harrisville Designs in New Hampshire. I hit the ground running this morning, dealing with the dead plants, from no rain and no water, nearly empty ponds and fountains, dealing with trash and recycling, yard waste and laundry. The drain on the airconditioning unit backed up, causing water damage in one of my ceilings, I managed to get that unplugged, and the one good thing about 100 degree temps with no rain in site, there is a chance the exterior walls will actually dry out and not mildew. I’m crossing my fingers.
