I see you sitting there watching me from wherever I am in the studio.  I know you have that blank, sad, unused, unloved puppy face, looking forlorn because I haven’t spent any time with you in awhile, at least not any regular quality time.  OK, yesterday’s repairs of the boy’s jeans and sweats didn’t count, you are so much more than just a sewing machine to be lugged out when a zipper breaks or a seam rips.  I know I’m neglecting you and all you are capable of, and in fact I miss you too.  I can assure you that you are my most favorite sewing machine I’ve ever owned, and I long to work on another project with you soon.

New Year’s resolutions are coming and I’m promising that I’m making an early one to always have a sewing project to work on, and I really really promise I won’t languish over the project for eight months like the last one.  Take heart, there are six looms calling at me, but only one sewing machine, and that sad blank look you give me as I walk by is calling to me louder than the looms right now.  Yes, I’m on deadline for an article, 8 yards of fabric needs to be woven off, and a project/kit has to be designed, and an article written with step by step photos, but I can pay attention to you too.  It is good for both of our souls.

So my humble apologies for neglecting you, and I’m going to try to make things right by starting in on another project.  But understand, before I can turn you on, I have to do the prep work.  I know, you’ll patiently wait because if I don’t do the prep work, I’ll never really like the way the garment fits or the way the fabric cleans.  But I worked hard all week long on the prep work and now I’m hoping  to cut out the tunic this weekend, so soon I’ll turn you on and have your competent motor purring along like a contented cat.

With much love,

Daryl

PS, Really really I’m through the prep work, just read the tutorial below…

First, the project.  I picked up three yards of a gorgeous cotton shirting fabric, a plaid of sorts with grey, white and aqua tones, when I was out in Boulder Colorado at Elfriede’s Fine Fabrics.  And I pulled from my pattern stash, a very cool Issey Miyake Vogue Pattern.  I love Issey Miyake patterns, they are like 500 piece puzzles, everything ends up fitting together in such an origami-esque kind of way, but the construction is always challenging and fun.  This particular pattern called for some really interesting pleating in diagonal ways across the garment, and it says right on the pattern envelope that it is unsuitable for plaids.  But that never stopped me.  I’m thinking this could be really really cool, or really really stupid.  You just don’t know until you try.  Sort of “Plaid Interrupted…”

This is V1204, and it is or was (I don’t know the current status) available in two size ranges.  This is always a dilemma, since I am right in the middle of the 12-14 pattern range, and the AA size goes to a 12 and the EE size starts at 14.

In the end, I chose the EE size, even though the pattern ease was described as “Very Loose-fitting”, meaning there is an extra 8 inches of ease in a shirt over the actual bust measurement.  I’m not sure why, probably because when I was ordering a bunch of patterns, I forgot to check the ease allowances.  I like my clothing to fit well, and to follow my shape.  I lived through the 80′s and 90′s when clothing was generic, boxy and one size fitted all.  That isn’t me and that isn’t my personal aesthetic. And I don’t like very loose fitting styles. The photo on the front of the pattern envelope is really deceiving because that’s the way I want the garment/tunic to look, and there is no way that tunic is eight inches larger than the model.  Then again, just making a size smaller could mean the shoulders are too tight.

So first things first.  Before I tackle the pattern decisions and adjustments, I need to get the fabric in to soak.  First I check that the fabric is on grain.  Meaning that the cut ends are thread perpendicular to the lengthwise grain, that a weft thread can be pulled straight across.  This fabric was easy because it was a woven plaid.  It was already cut on grain by the fabric store.  I pre-shrink all my fabrics, and I am always met with such incredulous stares when I mention this to students in my sewing classes, “You mean you can’t just buy it at the fabric store and start cutting it out?”  NO!  Except for wools, which I handle differently, I put almost all fabrics into a basin of very hot water, soak for 20 minutes and either roll in a towel to dry or spin off in the machine, depending on the fabric.  The spin cycle can leave nasty wrinkles in the fabric.  I chose to spin this cotton fabric, because there were three yards and I knew I could do a decent job pressing it later on.

Once hanging to dry I tackle the pattern decisions.  By opening up the pattern pieces, I can find the little finished circumference indicators at the bust and hip and check them against my own measurements.

Before I do anything else, I take the pattern pieces out of the pattern envelope and I press the pieces with a dry iron.  That removes any wrinkles and I’ll be more accurate when I trace off the pattern pieces I want.  That’s right.  I NEVER use the actual tissue as it comes out of the pattern envelope.  I want to preserve the pattern in all of it’s sizes, kind of like playing around with a photo in Photoshop, I alway leave the original untouched and play around with a copy.

I always buy by my chest measurement, because you get a more accurate fit, and unfortunately the chest measurement is rarely included on the pattern.  The bust circumference is not the way to measure, since all patterns are graded on a B cup, that is 1 1/4″ – 2″ difference between the chest and bust circumference, which I can assure you isn’t very much in the asset category at all.

Sidebar: after loosing a breast to cancer, I went for my prosthesis fitting and the fitter asked what size I wanted to be.  I answered between 1 1/4″ and 2″ difference between the chest and bust circumference measurement.  She thought I was completely crazy.  My logic was I’d never have to adjust a cup/bust measurement in a commercial pattern ever again…  :-)  (I don’t recommend this method of body alteration, it really is easier to just alter the pattern, but hey, I didn’t chose to get breast cancer!)

A Size 14 in commercial patterns calls for a 36″ bust circumference.  If you subtract 2″, you’ll get the chest measurement.  My chest (measured above the breast tissue tight under the arms) measures 34″, so a 14 should fit really well.  Except that according to the little finished circumference guide printed on the pattern, which is described as “Very Loose Fitting” this tunic will be 43 1/2″ around.  That calculates to 7 1/2″ of extra ease.  And the front of this tunic has a huge overlap.  I know I’m not going to be happy with the finished garment if I make the size 14.  So I opted to trace the size 12 instead except, crap, I bought the 14-20 multi size pattern.  No problem.  This is where having the grading schematic comes in handy.  If you look at the way a pattern is graded from size to size, there is a very clear proportionate schematic, and by following that schematic, you can trace a smaller or larger size by just increasing or decreasing by each of the increments drawn on the pattern.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…  I actually trace the tissue pattern using a product called Red Dot Tracer.  It is made by HTC, and now I understand also available from Pellon, after many try and fail attempts getting the base material right.  I haven’t tried the new Pellon version, but I will if HTC stops shipping for any reason (They do that frequently).  It is available on my website, if you can’t find it in stores).  I love this product, because I can trace what I want, use the red dots to make sure the pattern is perfectly on grain, and then sew it together as a first muslin.  I can then decide if it is even worth going forward to the muslin stage.  I match up the grainline of the pattern, with a row of red dots, and anchor it to a cardboard cutting board with push pins, lining up the grainline and row of dots with a gridline on the cutting board.  OK, I’m really anal about this.  But I do accurate work and each of these little details helps make the end product that much more precise and polished.

Now I carefully trace the patterns and the details I want, and in this case, I grade the pattern down from a 14 to a 12.  Once I have all the pieces traced, I go to my trusty Janome and turn it on (see, I told you I’d be using you shortly…) and stitch together the main pattern pieces using a long machine basting stitch (the longest stitch your machine will do).  I have a dress form and so my first stop is to try it on the form.  This isn’t a really really fitted style, there are no darts, and even though the waist is too short for me, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to lengthen the torso since the garment fits straight down from under the arm, and the closure sits well above the waist.

The fit looked really good on my dress form.  So I went into the bathroom and tried on the tunic pattern, and I think the fit is good.  I didn’t get a photo because no one else was up yet to take a picture of me and I didn’t feel like combing my hair, and a lot of my fit assessment is based on how the pattern feels on anyway.

So the next step here would normally to go to a cheap fabric and make up a muslin in the basic pattern pieces.  I know, I’m going to get letters, but I decided to skip this step.  I’m reasonably confident I’m going to like the fit, call it experience, and though I might regret the decision not to make it up first in something else, I’m happy enough with how the pattern feels on, so I’m going to take a chance.  But you didn’t hear that from me…  I’ll let you know if I should have done a muslin first.  Stay tuned…

What a great day this turned out to be.  The speaker was Anna Mazur, you would know her if you’ve subscribed to Threads Magazine in the last few years.  What a gifted and talented sewer, dressmaker, designer, fabric artist, and inspiration.  Anna is a Contributing Editor for Threads, and many many of her intricate garments and techniques have been featured over the years.  She began her program with her experience with beads, how she works, organizes, and lays-out her projects.  I intentionally listened with only half an ear since I did NOT want to run the risk of getting into yet another area of study.  After all, I just bought this new loom…

The lunch was surprisingly good, and then came the best part.  Anna brought a car full of her most amazing garments, spanning 30 years of dedicated workmanship, including some amazing coats tailored for her daughter when she was just a toddler (she is now graduating from college).  She brought garments from her articles, and garments from the Bernina Fashion Shows.  She brought award winning garments, and some of her mistakes.  It was a pleasure to listen and to be inspired, she has a sense of humor and an easy spirited demeanor that is engaging and encouraging.  And it was great to spend time with someone who is way more skilled than I am…  

I actually learned a thing or two…  

After the luncheon, I stayed to help Anna, introduced to her by our chapter president Carla, I am an experienced garment packer from years of schlepping and hauling my garments all over the world.  While we were packing, one of the attendees Sara Ann Megletti, owner of PB&J Stores in Newton, NJ covered one of the round banquet tables with the most beautiful Polymer Clay buttons I’ve ever seen.  Not only were their surfaces rich, but the color palettes fresh and current, and the shapes interesting and playful. I of course bought the olive green button in the center of the group photo, out of all of them, it kept calling to me…

Sara said that the buttons, from Crone Art, will be sold through distributors like herself, and she is feverishly working to get the collection up on her webstore.  She anticipates availability within the week.

So Anna will be teaching at the American Sewing Guild Atlanta Conference in August, where I will be as well, and we hugged and promised to reconnect in August.  It will be my pleasure…

On a sad note, my poor techie Kevin, stayed up until 3am last night, doing what a techie does when all else fails.  Uninstall/Reinstall.  I have had, as you have probably experienced, continual Fatal Error messages when trying to read, post or post comments on my blog, referring to Out of Memory Errors, since December 19th, 2009 when the first error was recorded in the log.  When I say this techie of mine is good, I think he is the best, his tenacity to stick with a problem until it is solved puts me to shame, and he has worked tirelessly on this problem for months.  The problem seems to be getting progressively worse, and the only thing left to try was a complete uninstall and reinstall.  Scary, but I trusted he would be able to do it without losing my data.

At 3am, he came to bed confident that the problem was corrected.  Sadly, three sentences into writing this post, I got the fatal error message.  I wanted to cry…

So, we will keep trying, be patient….

I took a little detour, because I had these little things sitting on my sewing machine, and they were just calling to me saying, “Fix me, fix me…”  So of course, I got knocked off course temporarily.  I blogged about my guild mug mat exchange last December (you have to scroll way down to find that part of the blog to see my mug mats).  I never showed the mats that I got.  Let me say that I love the fabric, and the colors, and the pattern of the mug mats I received at the exchange.  And I love the gorgeous wool backing my guild mate used to make the mats.  What I didn’t like, I’ll be honest, was the way they were constructed.  It was a sewing thing.  And I’m a sewer.  And I own a pair of shears and I’m not afraid to take something apart when I don’t like how it is constructed… 

So I spent about an hour, I had already taken the six mats apart, and trimmed them and fringed them, and added a piece of interfacing to the back.  I re-pinned the wool, and did a fine zig zag around the perimeter of each mat.  Now they lay flat, and don’t have the lumpy uneven corners that could cause a wine glass to tip… 

I’ve been working steadily on updating all the of the presentations/lectures/workshops I’m going to be giving on my southwest tour in February.  Since I’ve started the blog, I’ve spent hours documenting all of my projects, step by step photos, working out new techniques, and generally having a good time of it all, but I realized looking back over some of my lectures/workshops/monographs, that they could use a bit of updating, with some of the newer techniques/photos/projects.  The Leftovers Monograph needed a major overhaul, with all the new totes I did earlier on in the year.  I have much better step by step photos now, many of the ones I originally used were scanned from slides from storyboard techniques I used for demo purposes.  I finished reworking all the lecture/workshops for the trip, just proofing them now, but while I was working on updating the step by step PowerPoint slides, I had one of those slap yourself upside the head and yell, “Duh…” moments.  I had made a couple of placemats from leftover scraps, and developed a half day workshop out of it, I’ll be giving it this summer at the American Sewing Guild Conference in Atlanta in August, but I never resolved the edge binding.  I tried binding them a couple of different ways, and both attempts were too time consuming and clumsy for a four hour class.  Speed and ease in a class like this is so critical.  Just because I can do it, doesn’t mean a class of 25 students, sharing machines, in four hours, of mixed skill levels can do it.

Well, suddenly it hit me.  So simple.  No need for a separate bias binding here.  Just cut the lining for the mat bigger, and fold around the front and stitch.  It worked.  So easy.  I undid all the binding on both of the mats, and tried out this method, I was so excited, and loved the finish.  I gave the mats a final pressing and…

This would not be a good time to mention that I failed to follow the most basic of all sewing rules.  That would be preshrinking the fabric.  I of course would never take such a short cut as to not preshrink the lining used as the backing for my lovely mats.  So I don’t need to mention here what happens when you iron something that hasn’t been pre-shrunk.  Lets just say I wanted to kill another couple of hours and remove all the stitching again so I could prove how important it is to pre-shrink fabrics before you make stuff. 

In the middle of that escapade, I got one of Webs emails, you know the one with all the cool knitting yarns on sale.  Since I don’t as a rule buy knitting yarns, I’m not so inclined to check it out, but I lie…  If you search, there is always something in the weaving yarn mill end clearance that just has to come live with me, and I always groan audibly whenever the Webs sale ad comes into my inbox.  I can’t not check…  And of course Webs is too quick to ship…  So I got a little additional diversion, a back order I forgot I had from Halcyon, and my cheap yarn from Webs both arrived the same day, I unpacked everything and was sort of surprised at this huge cone of rayon bouclé in a lovely soft variegated color.  I thought I had ordered something else, but this is pretty cool, and I think the whole two pound plus cone was something like $15.  Works for me…

And finally, I finished a piece I’ve had on the loom since last fall.  This is one of my Personal Post Series artworks, small woven images in a Theo Moorman inlay technique, I’ve blogged about this technique numerous times, just do a search for “Big Sister” and there are all kinds of how to’s out there in my archives.  I was doing a pair of images, that I wanted to somehow use to create a diptych, images that play off of each other, bound in a way to make them book like, which I have done, but I don’t want to show the final images just yet.  I am hoping to enter this piece in the Small Expressions exhibit for HGA, but there is a query going around the blog-o-sphere about the definition of “published work”.

HGA (that would be the Handweavers Guild of America), who sponsors Convergence which will be in Albuquerque this July, is sponsoring four exhibits, one of which is the yardage exhibit I just applied to with work from my last blog.  The requirements are that the work cannot have been published.  Two years ago when I asked for more specific information about this subject, I was told that website content didn’t count, that they were mostly concerned with magazine publishing, or books/catalogs with the work, that would have a national exposure before being exhibited at a Convergence.  I understand that policy, and respect it.  The piece I had done for the fashion show, earlier in the year, I stupidly let Threads publish, and now I can’t enter it in Convergence, because of this policy.  No matter, I have other work to enter.  But the question has come up, do blogs count as publishing?  I hadn’t given that much thought, because website content was safe and I think of my blog as an extension of my website.  But blogs are a form of publishing.  So I have a query out to HGA, and hopefully will get a response in a timely fashion because the next three deadlines are lurking around the corner…  Meanwhile, here is the piece just before I cut it off the loom.

Eventually I’ll show the finished piece and the story behind it.  I think it is a pretty powerful piece, because it is about something important to me.  And that is what art is.  A form of communication.  Whether it gets accepted to the exhibition is a whole separate issue, and that will be what it is.  But for now, I am proud of this piece, and will eventually show it to you when I find out if blogging is actually publishing.

Almost every night, since my last post (was it really almost a week ago?) I’ve had a major event on the calendar.  Saturday had three events back to back!  Friday night, I attended the reception at the NJ Center for the Visual Arts in Summit, NJ, for the artists who donated work for the Blank Canvas Benefit.  You may remember my blog post last month while I worked on my piece.  Since the handwoven scraps used in the artwork were from one of my jackets, I thought it would be fun to wear the jacket to the reception.

It was great to see all of the other interpretations of the claybord we were given to work with, we could pick the size, and many of the artists chose to use the claybord as a flat box/container, as a standing shadow box, as a canvas, some two sided, and there was my piece, wrapped like a present, completely encased in fabric.  The food was delicious, and in any art venue, there are always interesting people to meet and chat with.

Saturday morning was the holiday party for my American Sewing Guild neighborhood group.  It was a pot luck luncheon, and a lot of fun. 

One of the members had been to a book sale, and she saw this little tome and because it said Hand-Loom Weaving on the front, she thought it was something I could use.  She herself isn’t a weaver.  It is little kindnesses like this that make the world a better place.  I was THRILLED!  I have never seen this little treasure, written by Mattie Phipps Todd, in 1902.  The book was revised in 1914, and that’s the version that you see here on the right.  It is a small little book, and it primarily focuses on teaching weaving in a classroom situation, using the new modern loom, which looks remarkably like one of the 25 small frame looms I have stacked up on a shelf for those occasions when I am demonstrating to a school group.  They have end rods that run through the frame to keep the weaving square, and adjustable end caps so the weaving can be sized.  The book, discarded from the New City Free Library, in New City, NY, (I’ll bet that’s a story in and of itself!), starts out with a fascinating chapter called “A Chat on Weaving”.  Small phrases in the side bars act like little highlighters, phrases like, “Community feeling continued”, and “Nature knows no hurry”.  Since this is a teaching manual, there are lots of phrases like “A child’s work should be suited to his capacity, without regard to grade”, and “If you would develop morality in a child, train him to work.”  This particular paragraph gave me  a huge smile:

“The child not only recognizes the value in honest labor, but his sympathy with all labor is aroused through his own efforts and through the stories told of weavers in all lands.  He realizes, also, although in a limited way, the interdependence of the whole world.  If the sun did not shine, and the rain fall, there would be no grass.  If there were no grass, what would the sheep do?…

Could it be this little treasure, discarded long ago from a library in an unknown city, holds the key to world peace? 

Saturday afternoon my husband and I drove to western NJ, where we attended an annual holiday gathering of friends, more interesting people to meet, share, and enjoy.  We raced back home, in time to meet my step-sister and her guy, have a quick bit to eat, and race over to the IZOD center to watch the holiday extravaganza of the Trans Siberian Orchestra.  Wow!  I actually had never heard of this very popular orchestra, a combination of rock, opera, classical remakes of the greats, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, with an added twist of pyrotechnics, fireworks, laser lights, and some pretty mean guitar work. The newest member of the Orchestra was a keyboardist from Russia who began his number with a rapid fire run on the keyboard of the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata!

Our seats were amazing, and the moving banks of lights, parts of the stage rising up, and walls of video images, made for quite the show.  I enjoyed it a lot, and it really set the stage for the holiday spirit.  The whole first half of the three hour show, with no break, was a lovely Christmas story of an angel flying the world in search of world peace.

Sunday I set out for my recorder consort rehearsal, we have a performance Friday night, and was horrified to see the havoc the unexpected freezing rain was having on the roadways.  I almost turned around a half dozen times, but decided it was more dangerous to do that than just keep on going.  I’ve never seen so many accidents.  When SUV’s are creeping along at 20 miles an hour on a slick interstate, with their flashers blinking, you know something is up!  And once I made it to Morristown, the sidewalks were complete sheets of ice.  I teetered along, digging the four inch spike of my new killer boots into anything I could to stay upright.  I made it to rehearsal, late, but safe, and by the time I headed home, the road crews were out spreading copious amounts of road salt and the traffic began moving at a steady pace of 45 mph.

Sunday afternoon, my son returned from his weekend at the Army National Guard.  This is his last weekend there, before he ships out to Boot Camp on January 4th.  It is the first time I’ve seen him in uniform, and I will say, there was a little bit of pride and a misty eye, my son has grown up.  That’s me over there lurking by the front door.

Sunday night, I had the annual holiday gathering with my “mom’s group”.  This is a group of six powerful women who all raised their kids together, meeting monthly for lunches for about 15 years, and then, once jobs took over, and crazy school schedules took over, a quarterly dinner is about all we can manage.  Still, there is a bond there that goes back 20 years, and we celebrate each time one of us hits a birthday milestone.  We celebrated Patty’s 50th birthday as well as the holiday, and everyone loved my coiled hot mats I’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks.

This morning, I’m about to shower and head out to the Frances Irwin Handweavers annual holiday luncheon, I’m really looking forward to that, and I actually bought an additional luncheon ticket for my husband, he has never attended a guild function, and I know there will be other DH’s there, so I decided it might be fun to have him along and accompany me on the hour long drive to Pennsylvania.

Tomorrow night is the High School Holiday Concert, my daughter will be playing the trombone.  And Friday night is my recorder consort performance.  Saturday we have tickets for a performance of the Baltimore Consort at the Cloisters in NYC, you cannot imagine how spectacular an early music performance is in this particular venue, the vaulted stone ceilings of the 15th century cathedral like space, it is positively haunting.

And tomorrow is the one year anniversary of this blog.  I have completely enjoyed the year, writing about my creative adventures, as they parallel my life and all of its crazy meanderings.  And I find it a great resource for me when I can’t remember how I did something.  Makes for a great record keeper… Stay tuned…

Anyway, I spend lots of time writing proposals, entering exhibitions, and doing the waiting game once I package everything together and send it off.  Sometimes I even forget I entered or submitted, which is probably not a bad way to handle the stress of waiting.  Today in my inbox, I got a “Congratulations, you’ve been accepted to teach…” letter from the American Sewing Guild, and they want me to teach 4 classes at their 2010 conference in Atlanta.  Can I tell you how excited I am?

On top of that, I just finished most of the final details for the April 2011 Ontario Canada provincial conference.  I will be teaching there, and giving one of the keynote addresses.  That’s been in the works since last summer.  I spent a good deal of time today, coincidentally, on the phone with a woman from Ontario, who found me searching the internet, and wanted to know more about my monographs on sewing, I had trouble realizing that she just found me on the internet, completely independently from the Ontario conference and Convergence in Albuquerque, where I’m also teaching next July, the booklet just became available for that.  Anyway, the woman was lovely to chat with, and towards the end of the conversation, she had me convinced that I need to look down the road a bit to one of my next goals, and bring it up further on the to do list.  That would be turning my monographs into DVD’s.  I bought the camera equipment last year, to be able to film the Step by Step process.  I’ve been looking at some of the sewing videos out there, and haven’t seen anything I really thought would work for how I would want my DVD’s to read.  The woman from Ontario encouraged me to pick up David Coffin’s DVD on shirtmaking.  She raved about it, and so of course, I immediately clicked on my trusty Amazon.com account and stuck it in my shopping cart, along with his book/DVD on making pants.  I’ll let you know what I think.  Always love an excuse to buy books on Amazon.

Speaking of books, my neighbor/friend is a media center specialist for a neighboring High School, and her school’s book club was sponsoring a fund raising event at a local Barnes and Noble.  Again, not to pass up a chance to just hang around in a book store all evening, I managed to dump a couple of hundred dollars, mostly on books for my daughter, she is seriously into Manga, but I did pick up a couple of movies I’ve had on my Amazon wish list for awhile.  I love the movie genre that takes a close look at a creative genius, uncovers their pain, their obsessions, their muses, and their passions.  I got a copy of Pollock with Ed Harris, and Goya’s Ghosts with Natalie Portman.  I also picked up Frida, with Salma Hayek.  I’ll let you know what I think of them once I’ve viewed them.

I cruised through the bargain book section of Barnes and Noble, and found a couple of little treasures, Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary?  First, I love Maureen Dowd, she is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times.  And secondly, how could you go wrong with the title? The book is a snarky look at feminism and the collision of the sexes.  The reviews are all over the place, so for $5.98 for the hard cover, I’m game.  I’ll let you know.

I also picked up Julia Cameron’s memoir, Floor Sample.  It had a dress form on the front cover. Julia Cameron wrote the well respected creativity book called “The Artist’s Way”, which has been on my shelf forever.  Again, the reviews are all over the place, but I thought it was worth picking up for $5.98 for the hardcover.

I mentioned that the latest issue of Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot came in yesterday, finally, I was probably the last to get my copy.  In it is the brochure for the HGA’s conference in Albuquerque next July, called Convergence.  Since I am teaching, I get to participate in early registration, but I couldn’t really do that until my magazine came in.  And come in it did!  All four copies.  I am all over the place in this magazine.  Which is why I got four copies!  I have a book review starting on page 9, a photograph of my piece The Spouse, on page 20, from the Small Expressions exhibit, and my article starting on page 31, the second installment of a three part series on the Designer’s Challenge from the Tampa Bay Convergence in 2008.  I ripped the Albuquerque conference brochure out of the middle of the magazine, and started to look through all the offerings.  It isn’t hard for me to fill out the registration, since I am teaching in every time slot, I don’t get to pick anything, but the tours before the conference look wonderful.  So wonderful that I booked two tickets for the Georgia O’Keefe Ghost Ranch tour and I’m dragging along my husband.

So, the bottom line here, is my next summer is pretty set, I’ll be on the road more than I’ll be home.  With two 5 day classes in August, at Sievers and at Harrisville in NH, along with the ASG conference in Atlanta and Convergence, and a 4 day class in fiber basics called Fiber Boot Camp at the Newark Museum in NJ, it doesn’t look like it will be much of a summer!  I’ve also got to write up proposals for two conferences for the summer of 2011.  Can you see my eyes rolling around in my head?  It is hard to follow the “One Day at a Time” way of thinking, when you are writing proposals for 2011, and 2009 isn’t even finished.  Oh the life of an artist…

All of the scheduled events I’ve mentioned above can be found with contact information on my website.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the invitations for Art Connections 6 at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University are out, I will have two pieces in the show.  The opening reception is January 17, 2010 from 2-5 pm if you are in the north Jersey area.  The show runs from January 17 – February 13, 2010

Stay tuned…