The Day Before…

Though I’m not completely packed, I’ve worked through much of my to-do list, and I’m desperately trying to keep the two conferences separate in my head.  I leave tomorrow morning, really really early, to fly to Denver and then Durango for the Intermountain Weavers Conference.  I will teach a three day class in making a jacket, moderate the informal fashion show, and then fly home on Monday, getting in sometime Monday evening.  Then I turn around, after a quick load of laundry, and a repack, and fly to Michigan for the next conference on Tuesday morning.  So, I’m trying to juggle information coming in fast and furious, making sure everything gets into the correct conference folder, and trying to pack for two conferences at once, hoping beyond all hope I don’t make a mistake!  🙂

The 62 pound box with all the handouts, monographs, and pattern paper is off to Michigan, and we noticed the shipper misspelled the address, one more thing to worry about!  🙁

There are massive thunderstorms in the area, so I’ve powered down my main desk computer, but my little puppy runs well on batteries and wireless, so I don’t have to worry so much about a power outage, which we’ve had a couple times in the last hour already.

I wanted to try blogging from my little puppy (if you haven’t been following my blogs, I just bought a new mini EeePC Netbook.)  Before I take it on the road, I wanted to make sure everything is running smoothly, I’ve already run my presentations with the projector, I just need to download the latest versions of them from the network.

I’ve cleaned the house, partly because it was really neglected and no one else was jumping to do it, and because with just a few hours turn around next Monday, I don’t want to have to be wiping toilets and counters, and sinks.

I also finished re-working my design journal.  I got so close to the end that I made a huge push to finish, since I couldn’t really travel with half of two separate journals.  It was a great project, and I was able to retrieve a lot of missing information, and I think it all looks readable and fun.  The first project featured here is one from 2004, called Rising Sun.  It is a sleeveless shirt woven with  HABU Textiles‘ silk and cotton yarns, and some metallic and eyelash yarns.  I wove the fabric, which was suppose to be two scarves, to match the Southwest palette from one of my Handwoven Magazine Fashion Forecasts.  My intention was to make a scarf and send it off to the magazine, but alas, I failed to take my own advice and sample first, and the scarf came out way to dense for a scarf.  Not surprising since I am pretty good at guessing the sett for garment fabric.  And to be sure, the sett for this lovely too dense scarf, was perfect for garment fabric.  What to do? Plan B… Dive into my patterns and find something from the stash that could supplement the scarf width, and make a shirt out of it.  Which I did.  And I can assure you I got a lot more use from the sleeveless shirt than another scarf!

Just had another power hit!  Fun working on my little netbook in the dark…

Have to wait for the wireless connection to find the wireless before I load in the next two images…

I’m back!  Wow, was that a storm…

Anyway, I wove this 8 shaft shadow weave fabric a few years ago, but sat on it for awhile.  I needed to update the pattern I use for my jacket classes, so I took advantage of this lovely graphic fabric and made a jacket just for me called Shadow Play.   Turns out it is one of my most favorite things I’ve made, and it looks great with my very NY travel wardrobe in black.  It will go into the suitcase for the class I’m teaching this weekend.

So, before the next thunderstorm rolls in, and I get even more distracted, I’m off to pack.  Hopefully I’ll get an internet connection in Durango, and I’ll be able to blog once in awhile, the evenings are full of events, Friday night is the opening of the Fiber Celebrated exhibition, I have two pieces in that, and Saturday night, the fashion show.

Stay tuned…