I will admit that I am rather annoyed by the whole holiday season which is loud and expensive and in your face and I avoid malls and excess shopping and crowds and excessive baked treats (ok well maybe only partially on the baked goods) like the plague. I find it hard to conduct business, everything takes longer, including shipping, and I can be a real Scrooge when it comes to the holiday spirit. We have too much stuff, and what’s important to me now, is very different than what was important to me 10 or 20 years ago.
So I braced myself, for the onslaught of holiday merriment, and I have to say, I rather enjoyed myself these last couple of weeks. Just having my family here made me happy, catching glimpses of them around corners, while they did mundane things, etching their faces and expressions into my memory, because soon they will be gone again. We all went to Maryland for a few days to visit my family, I had Christmas dinner with my mom and bonus dad, and my sisters who mean the world to me. My husband did a good job with my gifts, considering I asked for and wanted nothing. He got me things I could consume, like wine and chocolate, and an OTT-lite. You can’t have enough of those. He got me theater tickets and an arts weekend in Princeton, which he bid for in an online auction through Art PrideNJ. Those are things that are important to me and that make me feel good about spending the money. There were also a couple of art works from a couple of artists from an auction he attended at Peters Valley, while I was teaching in Alabama. And my favorite gift of all was a collection of images of the labyrinth and meditative walks from our trip to Taos in 2010, bound together in a Shutterfly book, I keep it on my night stand.
And for my gift to my husband, my secret project was a continuation of the one I started last spring for my husband’s 60th birthday. We have a probably a couple million images scattered around the house in various formats dating back to 1974 when we first met, and I have been painstakingly trying to recreate our many adventures, trips and vacations, and there were a lot I can assure you,into a book using PowerPoint slides that celebrates our life together. I managed to get through the 1970′s last spring, and I decided that for Christmas this year, I’d continue and try and pull all the images together through the 1980′s. I spent hours trying to recreate places we went, and what we did. We were lucky because in the 1970′s, we took almost exclusively slides, and they have preserved well and almost all had dates stamped on them. Not so lucky with some of the images from the 1980′s. Polaroids did not hold up at all. Cheap printing didn’t either. And my organizational skills back then were largely “stick them in an album wherever…” or “pile them in a drawer”. There were a lot of hours spent in the month of December using Photoshop to save some pretty poor images.
I can’t tell you how much fun it was to relive some of those past events, with a different eye. I found some wonderful snapshots, especially ones where family or friends were wearing some of my handwoven clothing. I sold my handwoven garments through craft fairs all through the 1980′s, and I’d forgotten how supportive my family and friend’s were.
There was a lovely photo from 1985 from my youngest sister’s wedding. That’s me on the left holding the handwoven jacket that coordinates with the handwoven dress and sash my sister wore as her “going away” outfit. (I did not pick out the pink dress, I was in the bridal party, you know how that goes…)
Here is a shot of me in my handwoven mohair coat in Salisbury England in 1988
And I found this 1983 image of a very early handwoven mohair coat, that’s me standing next to the first yard ornament we bought for our new (very old) house.
This is my husband and our dearest friend Annika, who lives in London. My husband has her young son on his back, and Annika is wearing one of my mohair coats, we are all at Kew Gardens in 1988
There was also a news clipping from an exhibit at the V & A (Victoria and Albert Museum) from that same trip to London. The first major exhibit of Kaffe Fassett’s knitted and needlepoint works along with objects from the museum’s own collections that have inspired the work. I remember being overwhelmed by all the color.
I found this lovely portrait of my husband and me taken in 1986, I’m wearing another one of my production mohair coats.
And in the category of “What Could She Have Been Thinking…” There were a couple of shots that surprised even me, here I am wearing an odd combination for me, yes it was 1989 and yes I was pregnant and yes we were in San Francisco but still…
This is even more hilarious, here I am pregnant and standing in front of Christian Bros winery. I have a vague recollection of this pink oversized sweatshirt/dress, and I remember it was really comfortable, but I am a bit mortified I actually wore it out in public.
And this classic, the prize shot for the “What Could I have been Thinking” category came this ensemble I wore to a family reunion in 1981. Candiss Cole and I bought this same outfit from a craftsman at the Gaithersburg Craft Fair, probably October of 1980. We were across the aisle from each other, and when we discovered that we had both purchased the same garment, we became lifelong friends because we both had the same taste in the absurd? So here is one for you Candiss, I know you read this blog! (The necklace was a series of porcelain flowers from another artist from the same show.) There is no explanation for the shoes…
And so, the new year begins. I’m working hard building presentations, new work, writing proposals, filling out contracts, shipping out orders, plotting new venues, and trying to gain control over my house which has somehow slipped through my fingers like sand. Or dog hair…
I don’t make resolutions. Not because I’m perfect, but because if they were important to me I’d be doing them. I do have some roughed out goals, but I always have those, and they get done when there is a deadline. I’d like to park in my garage bay again, before the next snow storm. I haven’t parked in it since 2006. Don’t ask. I’m starting to find some interesting stuff out there, that should be entertaining for a few days anyway. I’d like to spin more, and catch more movies and PBS series I’ve missed over the years, now that I can stream Netflix in the bedroom. I can do both of those at the same time.
So here is to another new year, this one is my 10th anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis, it has been 10 years since that nightmare, hard to believe my babies are grown, my husband is 60, I’m not far behind him. It has been a great year personally, professionally, and privately.
I wish all of you a new year full of creative adventures, AhHa moments, wonderful surprises, and friendship. And lots of lots of fiber experiences…
Stay tuned…
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They’re Back!
My daughter has returned from points north, and my husband from points east, or would that be west, depending on which direction you fly? Half way around the world, that could be either direction…
Anyway, with my family reunited, and the holiday season upon us, it is hard to get any meaningful work accomplished in the studio, though the to-do list continues to grow with or without me. And opportunities keep popping up, like, “Can you write an article and have it to us by the first of the year?” What was I suppose to do, say no? It was only a teeny short article… (Actually it still is, I haven’t written it yet, course I only found out about it two days ago…)
And this is such a great time of year to visit relatives, and friends, my neighbor/friend’s solstice celebration was last night, and it was the perfect night for a bonfire, no wind, the flickering sparks flew straight up to the heavens. There were songs and poetry, and readings and burning of stuff that just clogs up the pathways to serenity. We have theater tickets tonight, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.
So this means that work in my studio comes to a halt, and that life gets in the way, and I don’t ever want to make it sound like I’m complaining. I am thrilled to have a family and friends that I love that get in the way of what I also love. I worked on a secret project all month, secret because the recipient reads this blog. And I tried to keep up with cooking and cleaning and laundry which doesn’t seem to care what season it is. And now that my family is home, it is time to focus on them.
HOWEVER…
My home from college daughter is back and how I’ve missed her and her terrific presence in my studio. Once she slept for four days straight, she wandered in bored, and I’ve been throwing projects at her as fast as she can knock them off. First up was the annual Christmas epistle. Yeah, I know, I write one of them. I have 147 people on my Christmas/Holiday card list, and honestly, I would so much rather get a newsy letter, all about the family escapades, then a manufactured card with a printed name that tells me that the person or persons are alive and not much else. So I write my annual look back at the year, and report in to anyone who cares to read it. With pictures… And it was a great year… So Bri and I sat up licking and stuffing and sticking stamps and labels on 147 letters and out they went Thursday morning. For those of you who aren’t on my actual postal list, you can read the letter here.
Brianna also finished winding all the skeins into balls, and while I started winding the warp bundles for the gradient fabric on the AVL warping wheel, she reworked the new Tools of the Trade 15″ loom I bought on eBay last month, resetting the shaft height, (It was woefully incorrect) and replacing the apron cords. A good wood oiling and the loom looks and functions like it was brand new…
As I wound warp bundles, Brianna took the thrums and wound them into quills for my color and inspiration classes.
Brianna jumped onto my computer and finished scanning all my dress patterns into Photoshop Bridge to organize them by pattern type, so I could see at a glance all 376 patterns. Wow.
Meanwhile, I began to sley the bundles for the gradient fabric. I’m pleased so far, but I won’t really know until I start weaving how successful it will be, I still have to add the supplemental floats, and experiment with wefts. (And finish threading…) (And finish beaming…) (And actually finish sleying…)
And of course, in the back of my head I have visions of sugar plums what I want to make for the Convergence Fashion Show entries, and since I have to write this article, I might be able to kill two birds with one stone, (those poor birds…) without breaking the rule that entries cannot have been published. I have a plan…
Actually, one of the ideas I had was to take some of the scarves I still have from the batch I ran a few months ago. Other than the fact that they have very long floats, which would have to be tacked down, I think there is enough yardage between the four scarves I have, to create one knock out dress. I played around with the dress form, and I’m thinking this could look pretty great on a runway. And I could use another summer weight handwoven dress…
So, I’m off to the theater, with part of my family, and I most likely won’t post before Christmas, so no matter what you celebrate (I just read about a group who celebrates the birth of Sir Issac Newton (Newtonmas) on December 25, with all kinds of science based gifts and food), I hope your days are bright and full of yarn and creativity, and that the new year brings good health and lots and lots of projects!
Happy weaving/sewing/knitting/felting/creating!
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Oh wait, it isn’t mid-week yet…
I’ve totally lost track of days, which is a bit dangerous when I have these online classes tucked in here and there, my big fear is I will forget to log on…
The big news is, I finished my jacket. The jacket from hell. The hardest thing I’ve ever tried to sew. Physically. You have no idea…
I actually finished the jacket last weekend, but I didn’t want to add to my already lengthy post, the post was perfect the way it was, and I wanted to save something for later on in the week. I wore the jacket to recorder consort rehearsal on Sunday. Everyone asked if I knit my hat. I said, “no”, the hat was a refugee from a 1980′s craft fair. I found it in the stash of mittens and gloves. But I made the coat. They all looked at me like I had three heads. I get use to it.
I probably went through four packages of size 18 needles, a box of pins, and a half dozen hand sewing needles. My fingers hurt, and my nails were pricked, skin bled, and shoulders hurt. After awhile, I could no longer get the bulky jacket even near the machine, which shuddered when it saw me coming. I resorted to sewing the last 25% completely by hand. With pliers. But it was all worth it. I love my jacket, it is warm, and comfortable. I showed my girlfriend and she exclaimed, “You made that? It is so current…” (I’m not going to dwell on the ramifications of that statement, I know my friend is much more youthful and contemporary in the way she dresses, and I probably don’t spend a lot of energy on current trends, I prefer timeless, which will last much longer in my closet since I keep clothing for 20+ years…)
Anyway, I finished the coat, and I finished building a new PowerPoint presentation, all that takes enormous energy and a lot of computer time. I decided to be kind to my machine and sew something quick and painless and make sure I didn’t ruin it, throw out the timing or bend the shank. All is well, and my Janome 6600 seems happy and relieved. This little evening top is a Butterick pattern 5147, and I made it from some novelty fabric remnant I picked up years ago from a Joann’s in Detroit. So I’m guessing the fabric isn’t too current. But I like the top anyway, perfect for holiday parties. And I have a few to attend.
And so I started on my next big project, I mulled it over while I did endless hours of handsewing on my jacket. I want to get something substantial on one of my looms, they have been idle too long and there is this exhibit coming up for Convergence, you know, the yardage exhibit… No pressure. Deadline is January. Plenty of time…
So I thought I’d do a gradient warp, from a bunch of hand dyed rayon, silk, tencel, etc. skeins I dyed last year. I’m thinking of mixing structures twill, plain weave, with some supplemental floats. I’m trying not to plan too carefully, just see how this takes me, dangerous I know, but worth a shot. The worst that can happen is I don’t like the end result, and I re-sley or re-thread or cut it into tote bags…
Before I can do anything though, I need to de-skein all those gorgeous skeins, into pull balls. A slow process to be sure. I’m sorely tempted to invest in an electric cone winder…
On a side note… Thanks so much for all the wonderful supportive caring comments about my last post. It was a special night, and it helped me solidify what a gift it was by writing about it. I toss it out into the ether, and where it lands, is out of my hands. When it comes back with so many lovely supportive comments, that is a gift that keeps on giving. I follow a couple of blogs religiously, one is the Yarn Harlot. I just like the way she writes. Within about an hour of a post, there are a couple of hundred comments. I almost never comment, I figure she has enough to read. But maybe I should rethink that, since every comment I got made me smile and move through my day just a little bit lighter. So thank you…
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I’m still pinching myself, last night will go down as one of the best.
For many many reasons…
First, there was this opening at a gallery…
Not just any gallery you see, but first let me fill in some background…
I belong to the Textile Study Group of NY, I don’t often get into NYC to meetings, but whenever there are exhibits to enter, I try to be first in line. You may remember my hard work last summer on three felted pieces for the 9x9x3 exhibit, which sadly I was not accepted to…
Meanwhile, there was another exhibit, that sounded interesting, and my work fit the format of the show, so I sent along my application and promptly put it out of my mind. You see I rarely get into these types of venues, they don’t support garments, they are about pushing textiles and fibers past the boundaries, where fiber and the art world collide. My small Woven Memory pieces are what I usually apply with, and that’s what I sent in for this exhibit. It was the 35 anniversary celebration of the Textile Study Group of NY and they had procured a wonderful venue. Which I didn’t pay much attention to…
The exhibit was is called Crossing Lines: The Many Faces of Fiber, and when I got an acceptance in the mail, my first thought was, well, if they accepted me, probably not many people applied or it isn’t that important of a show. Seriously, I still get those insecurities as an artist, I know I make good garments, but the art thing still alludes me. But I keep trying, and sending in those applications.
So after a really rainy dreary Wednesday, one where we broke the record for annual rainfall here in poor drowning NJ, I seriously debated whether I wanted to trek into NYC by myself, for this event. My husband is in Saudi, and my daughter away at college, and they were both my top choice to go with me. And my other choice is my friend/neighbor down the street who loves to accompany me on these jaunts. She is thoughtful and sensitive and we have great dialogue when we go to events like this. Sadly she was playing a gig at a local bar last night, and couldn’t accompany me into the city. More about that later…
And so, armed with my directions and subway maps and my knitting, I headed off into the city, got there in record time, 30 minutes on an express bus from the mall, and hopped the E train, first to the east side to see the exhibit Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers at the Japan Society Gallery. The show is only there until the 18th of December. Totally worth the trip. The textiles were innovative, as only the Japanese can do, and soaring, filling the space with air and light and movement, as only the Japanese can do.
There is a wonderful article from the director of the Japan Society gallery on the show in the current issue (Fall, 2011) of Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot from the Handweavers Guild of America.
NYC has been installing new subway trains, and I had a lovely comfortable trip from the east side, down to the last stop on the E train, which is for the World Trade Center.
Sidebar… I was last at this subway stop, the last week of August 2001, when my husband and I loaded the kids on the train for a NYC adventure. We live a half hour outside the city, just over the river in Jersey, but like any good New Yorker, rarely take advantage of the tourist sites. We decided for some reason, still unknown to me to this day, to take the kids in and see as much of the city as we could cram in a couple of days. The weather was gorgeous, and we went on top of the World Trade Center, the view was amazing, we truly felt on top of the world, and we wandered around the area shooting all kinds of photos, and that was probably the last film shots I ever took, oddly enough in black and white, and though I can’t find the images or negatives, I found the contact sheet.
The twin towers were always an architectural anomaly, not very interesting, just very very tall. But the Winter Garden, the glass enclosure entry way that faced the Hudson River, was one of the most beautiful man made spaces I’ve ever been in. I shot lots of images of the outside and the inside. Soaring palm trees reached the top of the glass arch. I stood in awe for a long time…
Two weeks later of course, was September 11. The Winter Garden was crushed in the wreckage, I pulled this photo from Wikipedia, taken by photographer Bri Rodriguez shortly after the towers fell. As horrific as 9/11 was, I was heartbroken that such a spectacular man made space fell victim to the events of that day, and though I can’t really say why, I’ve not been back to the financial district of Manhattan since. I don’t like crowds, and it is largely a construction site, and I’ve had no reason to be down in the financial district.
Until last night…
I walked along the construction barricades, from the World Trade Center subway stop, along what I thought was Vesey Street, in the general direction where I thought the World Financial Center was. Largely I just headed towards the river following all the people along the pedestrian walkways protecting them from all the construction debris.
I got to what I thought was the right building, and asked a guard where the gallery was. He pointed and then explained about walking down this corridor, around to the left, all the way to the end, up the escalator by the Starbucks, etc.
I was growing weary and needed food and thought about what an out of the way confusing place this gallery is, and when I got to where he had explained, I couldn’t find the gallery anywhere. Until I turned around the looked up. OMG!
The gallery is in the second floor rotunda, soaring up into the atrium of this building, I could see the artworks hanging on the walls. I went up the escalator and saw that the entrance to the gallery was closed off, which makes sense, since I was two hours early. I grabbed a sandwich from Starbucks, and decided to walk outside. I really didn’t know exactly where I was, I’m not good with directions, and I was blown away by the sunset over the Hudson and the walkway of trees with beautiful moving lights suspended from them.
And then I turned around. I froze. There in all its magnificent glory, was a completely restored Winter Garden. I did a quick look on Wikipedia, and found out that the first structure restored after 9/11 was the Winter Garden.
…almost all the glass panes were blown out by the dust clouds triggered by the collapse of the Twin Towers, but was rebuilt during the first year of the Financial Center’s recovery. Reconstruction of the Winter Garden required 2,000 panes of glass, 60,000 square feet (5,400 m²) of marble flooring and stairs, and sixteen 40-foot (12 m) Washingtonia robusta palm trees at a cost of $50 million. Reopened on September 17, 2002, the Winter Garden was the first major structure to be completely restored following the attacks.”
And the gallery where my small insignificant art work hung, was attached to this glorious structure. The palm trees soared, and though it was night, the space was spectacular, as beautiful as I remembered it, I took a couple of photos and wandered back to the gallery doors to sign in and get my badge.
I floated through most of the evening. I cannot tell you how beautiful the exhibit was, and how honored and humbled I am to have been included. The work represented fiber as art and craft and social commentary and historical. Boundaries were pushed, and the variety and caliber of work was breathtaking. And the space…
One of my favorite works was a floor sculpture that stretched along the wall of the rotunda, overlooking the atrium of the Financial Center Courtyard. This burlap and paper sculpture was called Cathartic Birth by Rachel C. Wright. It represented a lot of what I felt about the evening.
I went slowly and carefully through the exhibit, chatting with so many of the artists I knew, and many I didn’t know. I savored every minute of it.
The piece I submitted was one I did from a drawing I sketched on a napkin while I spent the endless vigil watching my mother in law, one of my oldest and dearest friends and fiber mentor, die at the age of 99. I wanted to commit to memory every line of her face, capturing the grace of her lifeless body as she breathed her last breaths. I carried that napkin around for a long time in my purse, until I decided that to preserve the napkin and therefore my memory of that grace, I should scan it into the computer. That gave me the idea of printing the image on silk habotai, and stripping it and reweaving it back together, it was a very healing piece for me to weave, and is one of my favorite of all the pieces I have done in this technique.
Sidebar: I am offering an online class in this particular technique, called Weave a Memory, on Weavolution.com December 13th, next Tuesday, from 7-8:30 pm EST.
Anyway, I eventually wandered back to the subway stop, feeling like all was right with the world. The Winter Garden was whole again, and life would go on. My work was in probably the most gorgeous show I can ever hope to be a part of, and I came back on the bus with only one regret. That my husband couldn’t be there with me to see it all. He is of course in Saudi Arabia. The show will continue through February 19th, 2012, so I’m hoping to go back with him to see the exhibit, open Tuesday – Sunday from 12:00- 4:00pm.
Back to my neighbor and her gig at the local bar…
I have a wonderful friend and confidant, we have know each other for almost 20 years. We raised our kids together, and shared a street, our homes, holidays, our children, and our lives. A media specialist by day, in the Newark public school district, she has embarked on a pretty grueling and impressive second life, that of a musician, playing local gigs, and some not so local, she has teamed up with another really talented musician and together they have formed the band Morning Door. I’ve watched her blossom in this new role, she is so talented, and I’m so thrilled for her, when I realized her local gig was the same night as my opening I vowed to figure out a way to do both.
So I got off the bus at the mall, headed home in my car, going directly to the Sunset Bar and Grill at the little airport behind my house. I met my son there, who said he would be happy to accompany me, like a date. The bar was packed when I got there, and I found a stool behind the pillar, so my friend didn’t see me there until the break. We chatted and when she returned to the stage to play, she called my son up to join her in a Leonard Cohen number, one of my favorites, Hallelujah, and my son stepped up to the mike and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The night couldn’t have gotten any better. He belted his heart out, in beautiful harmony with my friend, they had rehearsed earlier that day, and again, my only regret was that his father wasn’t there with me.
Sigh, what a night…
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I haven’t abandoned you dear readers.
It’s just that sometimes, there are priorities that get in the way, and that can be a really good thing.
My whole family was reunited for a brief holiday weekend (yeah, that one last week, Thanksgiving…)
My exuberant daughter was back from college with all her drama and laundry.
My son surfaced briefly from the hell well of black Friday retail blues (He works at Target, enough said…)
My husband came in from Saudi Arabia, and immediately set out to repair, fix, or replace much of what went wrong in his absence, before he leaves again to go back to Saudi on Sunday.
Three of us, (except my son who was chained to a fork-lift at Target for the long shopping extravaganza of a weekend) all set out for the Catskills, where my wonderful sister and her husband have a cabin. Can I tell you how grateful I am that she and her husband are willing to share this lovely retreat, especially for holiday weekends? This time last year my daughter was recovering from Wisdom Teeth Removal surgery, and my husband was recovering from a cat bite that caused brief hospitalization. Nothing so dramatic this year.
Except the dog. Animals have a way of showing their displeasure at being abandoned, and it is very clear that we all travel entirely too much. We probably shouldn’t have a dog, and I swore when the last one died that we wouldn’t replace her, but you know how it goes, especially with a daughter who worked at a kennel for a number of years. I’m surprised we don’t have more.
So when my husband and I went out shopping the day before Thanksgiving, the dog trotted up to my studio and lifted his leg on a pile of white yarn, sitting in the corner, waiting to be skeined. Ewwww…
Thankfully I discovered it before we left for the cabin on Thanksgiving day. I threw the yarn in the garage. Most of Thanksgiving weekend I spent skeining the yarn so I could scour it with soda ash and Synthrapol. I’m down to the last cone. It would have all been skeined and washed anyway, but I wasn’t planning to spend my Thanksgiving salvaging yarn.
Note to self: Keep studio door latched at all times…
Sunday my daughter returned to college. :-(
Wednesday morning I woke to a series of texts, she was really really sick and her laptop broke. After many phone calls and texts, and a trip to the walk in clinic on campus, it was determined that she had “acute pharyngitis, acute sinusitis, and an upper respiratory infection. They sent her home with a bag of soup broth, tea, honey, and salt along with antibiotics.” And last night, she, and a couple of engineer geeks on her floor, performed surgery on her laptop, to remove all the accumulated pet hair that had clogged the fan causing the processor to overheat. I heard on Facebook that the surgery was successful.
And my illustrious son, whom I adore, and has given me such grief over the years, decided to actually take my recommendation and start writing a blog of his own. The point of this blog, was to practice writing. It is his weakest skill. I think he would love to one day return to college but he has to be able to pass English Comp 101. So far that hasn’t happened. There is no better way to get better at writing than to just write. (And reading a lot really helps as well…) So he started a blog, called the Illustrious Illiterate. And now he spends his time with a stream of consciousness and a keyboard, and we have all discovered that not only can he write, he is pretty good, and pretty funny, and he is learning how to make spell check his friend, and I’m learning way too many things I would rather not have known about my illustrious son.
So my husband and I went to Target yesterday, because on top of everything else, the toaster oven broke. While we were there, we decided to replace the living room rugs that were, lets just say they were due…
We got home and rolled up the old ones, cleaned up the wood floors underneath and spread out the new ones, beautiful hand knotted wool, who knew, on sale, and four hours later the dog threw up on the brand new rugs. Sigh…
I’ve spent most of this week cleaning. Partly because the house needed it, (I’m talking deep cleaning her, like moving furniture) and partly because my wonderful dearest oldest friend Candiss Cole and her husband Rodger are due in this afternoon, to stay for the weekend while they do a craft fair in Morristown. I don’t usually have the space to put them up, but with my daughter gone to college, I was able to rid her room of all the dog hair and debris and turn it into a serviceable guest room for two. I can’t wait…
And my lovely shearling jacket. My challenging lovely shearling jacket. My rip your hair out challenging lovely shearling jacket. I have to say, I’ve met my match. And I’m not sure why that is. Partly because I’m reinventing the wheel so to speak, and partly because the assembly directions in this pattern aren’t quite set up for what I’m doing here, and partly because I have all these wonderful distractions that are keeping me from actually focusing on the task at hand. So I failed to think ahead and realize that I needed to engineer a hem and I had already chopped seam allowances off on the denim, and I had to redo much of what I had already done. There are so many seams in this jacket. After letting out the pattern, I had to reshape and rework many of the seams to get it to fit the way I really wanted, something I couldn’t have simulated in the muslin. I had basted all the seams, but ripped out most of them to adjust the fit. And the zipper. I shortened the zipper forgetting I had lengthened the torso of the jacket. Sigh… I ripped that out four times as well…
It is turning out lovely and every time I try the bloody thing on, I decide I want to be buried in it, it is so warm and comfortable. But my progress is slow and I feel like I’m going to spend all of December on this and I have so many other things I want/need to accomplish. So I just take each day as it comes, and right now, I want to focus on my friend and her husband and my own husband who is rewiring the ethernet lines in the house, as I write… He will leave on Sunday and I won’t see him again until right before Christmas…
Sigh…
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So I braced myself, for the onslaught of holiday merriment, and I have to say, I rather enjoyed myself these last couple of weeks. Just having my family here made me happy, catching glimpses of them around corners, while they did mundane things, etching their faces and expressions into my memory, because soon they will be gone again. We all went to Maryland for a few days to visit my family, I had Christmas dinner with my mom and bonus dad, and my sisters who mean the world to me. My husband did a good job with my gifts, considering I asked for and wanted nothing. He got me things I could consume, like wine and chocolate, and an OTT-lite. You can’t have enough of those. He got me theater tickets and an arts weekend in Princeton, which he bid for in an online auction through Art PrideNJ. Those are things that are important to me and that make me feel good about spending the money. There were also a couple of art works from a couple of artists from an auction he attended at Peters Valley, while I was teaching in Alabama. And my favorite gift of all was a collection of images of the labyrinth and meditative walks from our trip to Taos in 2010, bound together in a Shutterfly book, I keep it on my night stand.
