April 2009 – Page 3 – Daryl's Blog

The Planets have Aligned!

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?

A Weekend Off!

I don’t realize how little time I take off from the studio. Since my studio is part of my home, cooking dinner is sometimes the only thing that gets me out of the studio in the course of the entire day, morning until bedtime. I love being in my studio, there is always something going on, something to challenge me, something to draw me back after dinner, but I fear sometimes that I lose my perspective and ability to get out and just have some fun. So other than an intense, nose to the grindstone effort to get the pantaloons done for the Cinderella coachman costume for my son, I actually spent the weekend entertaining my mom and step-dad, watching Les Mis at my step-niece’s HS in Mount Olive, (which was an unbelievable production for HS), church this morning, (making a couple of new friends), a party this afternoon, (where I spent some time getting re-aquainted with some old friends), a trip to the airport tonight to drop off my husband, (where my girlfriend tagged along and we went out for margaritas and nachos afterward), and now I’ve had my fill of socializing and I am grateful for some perspective! Time to get back into the studio tomorrow! I have a jacket to finish, a website to finish, and an article to write for SS&D. And I have placemats to weave.

My daughter finished her second mat. So now the race is on. She has finished two of the eight needed for the guild placemat exchange, and I have only finished one. But in all fairness, I got sidetracked by a pair of pantaloons…

Speaking of pantaloons, here they are, almost finished, held together with pins for the final fitting, and then I just had to sew everything together on the machine. To refresh everyone’s memory, my son is a theatre major at County College of Morris. He plays the coachman and is in the ensemble for their spring production of Cinderella. They gave him an old leiutenant’s doublet from Van Horn and Sons Theatrical Costumes, the poor doublet was threadbare and tattered, and I did my best to repair, but he needed pantaloons to go with it. To dull the brocade I used, I first boiled it in coffee and tea, which dirtied the fabric a bit, but not to the extent of the jacket. I had a knit on the shelf that would work for the base color, so I backed it with an inserted weft interfacing and then started cutting. I love how the pantaloons look, and on stage, sitting on a pumpkin, in black tights and black dance shoes, my son will look appropriate for a coachman that was once a rat. The green ski hat is part of a 19 year old male college student costume so I imagine he will have to ditch that.

The weather today was spectacular. The most gorgeous day so far this year. It was sunny and 70 degrees, and everything is sprouting green, and the daffodils are just about to explode, the forsythia is bordering on full bloom, I love my yard this time of the year, in spite of all the work I need to do. It was a great day for an afternoon party which we were able to spend a good portion of outdoors. Rain is predicted for the next couple of days, I’m hoping all this wet weather will help my little vegetable garden! I love spring lettuces…

Special Delivery

I have a really great weaving buddy friend, who has been known on occasion to go through massive clean-outs of areas of her house, and she will throw everything in a box she doesn’t want and ship it to me. I always love “care” packages from my friend. She knows whatever is in the box will get some attention from me, and that I have enough contacts to see that everything finds a good home.

So today my daughter was trying to come in the front door after school, and couldn’t get in because of a huge box, full of magazines, weaving journals, and fiber books. OMG!

What a treasure box this is, there are magazines dating back to the 40’s. The highlights include a December 1942 Woman’s Day with a lovely article on weaving in it, back issues of Fiber Arts, SS&D, Handweaver and Craftsman and Craft Horizons. There is a newsletter series from the 50’s-60’s called the Shuttle, I think published by Maysville. There are two volumns of Handweaving News from the 1930’s from Nellie Sargent Johnson, Detroit. And my favorite, a bound volume of 1945-46 issues of Osma Gallinger’s Shuttle Service complete with actual woven samples. All of this was apparently in the storage unit. This is my lucky day! There was also a copy of Ann Sutton’s Structure of Weaving, you’d think I’d already have that one in my library, oddly enough I didn’t. And I have a huge textile/periodical library!

After I got through that very welcomed distraction, I got down to business, I finished another couple pages on the new website, actually, looking over what’s left, it seems I only have four more pages to create. The Extras Page will be ongoing, I’ll move over PDF articles and things from my old site, but I hope to add to it, maybe extracting out the parts of the blog that pertain to specific garments and creating an all- in- one article to make it easy to follow the string. Stuff like that. I was trying to do a check on the site tonight, make sure everything I uploaded was working, but the site seems to be down. I’ll check later.

I managed to get the sleeves into the jacket, and I am soooooo happy with it. It looks fabulous on, so trim and angular, the lime green felt piping just pops right out of the jacket. The jacket was a dream to sew, there was enough wool content to remind me why I love tailoring wool, and why my mom would haul us down to 4th street in Philadelphia when we were growing up, to get the best wools for her suits and coats. Now I’m down to the lining, which should go together quickly, and then hours of handwork.

Tomorrow I have to spend the day making pantaloons for my son’s costume for Cinderella. I mentioned this in the last blog, but I have a better idea now of what they want, and I rooted through my stash and found enough stuff to pull this off without having to spend any money. I found a length of a jacquard white on white decorator fabric, which was too white and clean looking for the age and condition of the dublet they gave me. So I poured the remaining morning coffee and tea into a pot on the stove and “aged” the jacquard fabric to the correct color. I took measurements of my son’s trim muscular body, and I’ll see if I can whip out a pair of pantaloons! Stay tuned…

The Proverbial Grindstone

So another two days spent with my butt stuck in the chair, my hand paralyzed in the shape of a mouse, and more of the letters worn off my poor wireless keyboard. But, I did get two important pages done in the new site. The 1-1 1/2 hour lectures page, and the 2 – 2 1/2 hour lectures page are entered. What a job. The worst part was finding the original images I used for the prospectuses, there are just so many times you can save .jpg’s, and they lose a considerable amount of information. So I always like to start with the original file. But where among the thousands of images I have stored in about 5 different back up locations, could each of the images be hiding?

It’s like that in my studio, “I know it’s here somewhere…” “I remembered seeing it in 1994″… “Whatever happened to that…” Then of course I become a woman possessed. I won’t rest until I find the yarn, fabric, tool, image, whatever is lurking just out of site…

Besides spending the day searching through my vast archives for original files of some of my images, I also hunted around the studio for my supply of upholstery braiding. I know it’s here somewhere. I have to do an emergency costume for my son who plays the coachman in a performance of Cinderella. Yes, the same son with the car in the previous blog. I have to make a pair of pants to match a very old Lieutenant’s Doublet from Van Horn and Sons Theatrical Costumers. The jacket is in tatters, I’ll do my best to repair, but they need me to construct a pair of pants that will look like they go with it. So far, I haven’t found the braid. Next check is the attic, and oh boy, there are amazing things stored up there…

Speaking of my son, he announced yesterday that he is planning to join the National Guard. Well, I’ve been a bundle of mixed feelings all day, part of me knows that this would really be great for him, and part of me is scared to death. So, I’ll just focus on the costume for today.

I am planning an excursion into NYC over my daughter’s spring break, there are a couple of fiber shows I want to catch, one at the Cooper Hewitt called Fashioning Felt, and the other, called Seduction at the Museum at FIT. While checking out times and which days they are closed, I checked the MET to see if there was anything new of interest, and I found that they have an artwork of the day, which can be posted to your Google reader, or whatever you use for keeping track of such things. So, today’s image came up The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, ca. 1799-1800
William Blake (British, London 1757 – 1827 London)
British
Watercolor, pen and black ink over graphite; 14-1/8 x 13-1/16 in. (36 x 33.2 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1914 (14.81.2)

Somehow in all my years of Catholic School, and my years teaching Sunday School in the Reformed Church in town, I never came across this parable. What’s with the 10 virgins? So I did a quick search on Wikipedia, and got the scoop, it is a really odd analogy for being prepared for the second coming, but I loved the watercolor. And the whole idea of 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins waiting for a bridegroom who is having on-time issues, has got the creative juices really churning. So now I have something else to look forward to, a new work of art every day, just go to the website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and subscribe to the artwork of the day feed. This was number 3,000 something, out of 130,000 plus artworks. I should live so long…

I went to the Jockey Hollow Weavers Guild meeting tonight, and the speaker was Barbara Elkins, the woman who started WEBS. If you are a handweaver reading this blog, you know about WEBS, “America’s Yarn Store”, a 30,000 sq. ft. facility in Northhampton, MA. When I do buy yarn, I probably buy from them, and it was really great to listen to Barbara talk about how she and a fellow weaver started by renting out looms in order to get more money to buy yarn. That was 35 years ago, and in their garage. It was a great story, and I love the store, I’ve been there, Pioneer Weavers meets in the store, and I taught a jacket class for them a couple of years ago. Barbara was wearing the jacket she made in the class, tonight at the meeting. They are having their 35th anniversary sale, the email just came in my box. Beware, their sales can be quite toxic to credit cards! Seriously, they have a great website for ordering and terrific customer support, and I usually get whatever I order within two days. (That would be east coast).

So as I’m driving home from the meeting, in the cold dreary steady rain, visibility zero, I suddenly had a panic attack. The placemat exchange is due at the June meeting, this was the April meeting. That means my daughter and I have exactly 8 weeks to weave 14 more placemats. You do the math… So, out with the whip, and lets get cracking…