Arctic Sky Completed

daryl — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:02:29 +0000

Yippee! I finished the jacket. I am so happy with it. As a matter of fact, today was a pretty good day, I accomplished a lot. And this is actually my second blog today. First the previous blog, with the spinning wheel caper. While I was in the middle of that, I actually started sorting through all the magazines my textiley friend send the other day, largely because I have a guild meeting on Monday and want to unload all the duplicates, my shelves are starting to bend from the weight! There weren’t too many, and I did get to put away a whole stack of my own recent acquisitions. I hadn’t done that in awhile.

So, I got the lining in. And it is beautiful. I love using these sari’s as linings, a gift from my husband’s last couple of trips to India. I blogged about it in early February. I sat chatting with a girlfriend yesterday while I started the hours of handwork, a really good friend who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. It felt good to just sit and sew and chat, she lives on the west coast, and in this day of 160 character bytes of information, texts, emails, and twitters, an old fashioned hour and a half chat while I sewed in my lining was just the best treat for both of us.

I spent the afternoon (after organizing my magazines and fixing the cracked hub on my spinning wheel) writing an article for Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot. Sandra Bowles asked me to do a series of articles for the next three issues of SS&D, publication of the Handweavers Guild of America, on the Challenge Project I’ve been talking about in recent blogs. So I did a synopsis of Loretta’s and my experience as collaborators and team members, and wrote the article today. I just have to proof and upload all the images. Future articles will be about the other two teams.

So after dinner, I chatted simultaneously with my husband in New Hampshire via instant message on my computer, and my girlfriend Dawn via text message on my cell phone, and continued the hand sewing on the jacket. I will say that was a bit of a juggling act. I kept having to put the thimble down and answer the two sets of messages, and eventually just gave up in favor of the old fashion chat via speaker phone. I finished the lining, took some quick photos, and voilá!

The Planets have Aligned!

daryl — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:13:01 +0000

For a day that started out poorly, it ended most spectacularly! I didn’t sleep well last night. I had too much partying, more alcohol than I usually consume (which is almost nothing, hence the problem) and rich food, and too much of it, and I laid awake most of the night, trying to sleep, but finally giving up and reading. (Joan Dideon’s Year of Magical Thinking). Which meant I was a wreck in the morning. And my daughter called from school to have me make a doctors appointment to have her checked for strep. So by the time I finally got up, made the appointment, drove to the HS to get her, took her to the doctor (she did not have strep, only a virus, and the doctor sent her back to school) and drove back home, it was lunch time. My plans of all I was going to accomplish were rapidly sifting through my fingers. And on top of that, a miserable cold rain made everything soggy and frigid. One of those bone chilling days where you just can’t get warm.

But I decided to try to make some headway on the new website. I only had four pages to go, and one of them was pretty critical. My schedule. I hadn’t updated the old site in awhile, and a lot needed to be entered. Once I decided on a format, I just had to look through all my files and emails to plug in as much information as I had, all the dates and contacts, and the topics I was teaching. Then to simplify the site, I linked PDF files for the prospectuses instead of all the lengthy descriptions like I had on the old site.

So I plodded along, got my son to take my daughter back to the HS tonight for jazz band, and sent him out for a Chinese Food run. And I continued to plod…

The upshot is, I FINISHED THE SITE! I can’t believe it. I’m done. I’m so proud of what I’ve done. And I put a temporary home page on the old site to direct to the new site, eventually when I’m sure everything is correct, and my husband returns from New Hampshire, I’ll wipe out the old site, and park it with the new one, so whether you go to www.weaversew.com or www.daryllancaster.com, you will end up in the same place.

Just as the last file uploaded, an email came in from Sandra Bowles, executive director of the Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. telling me that they have approved my presentation for the Challenge Project I did last year for them, and I’m OK to market the presentation on a CD, to any guild that would like to show it for a guild meeting or program. I have to say that Sandy went out of her way, doing way more than I asked, by carefully working through all 81 slides, and proofing, editing, and watching for copyright issues, in a very professional and thorough manner. I am very grateful Sandy. So, give me a few days and I’ll have the CD up on my eShop. I think I’ll offer it as both a PowerPoint and a PDF file on the same disk. If you are a member of a guild, weaving, sewing, whatever, or just plain curious, this CD presentation is intended to stand alone, without me, as an inexpensive hour and a half program, following the year long challenge presentation, where I was paired with a designer I had never met, given yarn I’d have never picked to work with, in colors that don’t appeal to me, and we had a year to come up with a runway ensemble to debut at the Convergence 2008 Tampa Bay Fashion Show. The 81 slide presentation starts with the design process, which was completely done with emails, and then the step by step sampling for the woven fabric, the design and pattern making , the cutting out and construction of the coat and dress, and the final embellishments, hand felting and beading that kept my partner Lorretta Dian Phipps up too many nights in a row. There are some great production photos, and I’m really proud of the finished ensemble and the presentation as well.

And I even got an hour off to watch the latest installment of the new HBO series, #1 Ladies Detective Agency, starring Jill Scott. (I had recorded it from Sunday night since I was driving to the airport while it was airing). It is as delightful as the series by Alexander McCall Smith, and I have to almost say, I like it even more. The gentle life in Botswana, the interesting cases that fall into the lap of Precious Ramotswe, the endearing characters, and the spectacular scenery all keep me captivated and yearning for more.

Dare I hope to get the lining done on the coat tomorrow?

Daryl's Blog » Handweavers Guild of America Inc.

Arctic Sky Completed

The Planets have Aligned!