Post Mortem or playing ketchup…

Actually it is Catch-up, but I liked the word ketchup better.  We are almost finished with the holidays, the social obligations, the Christmas cookies, the good cheer, the Christmas cookies, oh, and did I mention the Christmas cookies? (I recieved something like six trays…)

We spent a glorious three days over the Christmas holiday with my sister and her husband in rural northern Maryland.  It poured rain for most of the time we were there which prevented us from doing anything wonderful outside.  I brought nothing with me to keep me occupied.  That would be no weaving, no sewing, nothing that involved yarn, no computer, no technology, no email, no blogging, just gifts, and my family and a big bottle of wine.  🙂

The weekend was glorious because I did something I almost never do.  Absolutely nothing.  I just enjoyed the quiet and peace of a good visit with my sister, wine and friendship, planning meals together from all the leftovers, fixing a puzzle with my daughter, and playing the occasional word or card game.  I finished a couple of books, and I came home feeling rested, calm, and peaceful.  Sort of what the holidays had intended but rarely produce.

So now, I am back in fast forward drive, trying to play ketchup or catch-up this week, dealing with all the things I didn’t deal with while I was playing in NYC, unwrapping gifts, and visiting with my family.  Things like clean the house. Bummer…   Things like laundry.  Double bummer…  Things like paying the bills.  We won’t even go there…  None of these activities make for an interesting blog post, but they all have to get done, and once finished, they have this habit of needing to be done again almost immediately. 🙁

So I spent the better part of the last two days, cleaning my very dirty house, doing countless loads of laundry, organizing the paperwork so I can pay all the bills when the pay check comes in tomorrow, and four hours today writing proposals for a conference in 2011.  That would be a year and a half away.  So far away I can’t even think.  The conference may even conflict with my daughter’s High School Graduation, but I won’t know the dates for that until late next year.  So I send out the proposals and hope for the best.

What I really want to do is play with my new painted warps.  They are beautiful.  I can’t wait to get them on the loom.  I might play around tonight with my drafting software (I use Fiberworks PCW) and see what I can make with these babies.  I long to get something substantial on the loom.  Some of the colors dyed brighter and deeper than I had planned, but no matter, I think this fabric will weave up gorgeous, and colorful.

In addition, I got a few skeins from the leftover dyes. More than likely I won’t use these skeins in the 10 yard fabric, but they are there for when I get inspired and need just the right thing.  And I had a stack of rayon scarves sitting under the cutting table, and I used two of them to mop up the rest of the dye, a dark brown and a dark plum.

One of the books I finished on my weekend getaway, was Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle.  It is the story of her family’s yearlong attempt to be locavores, that would be consuming only foods grown by them or by local farmers or producers.  The book is fascinating, and Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite writers.  I actually listened to the audio book, and she reads the book herself.  The point of the book I think, is not to convert everyone who reads it to go back to the land and grow all your own food, raise and slaughter your own poultry, make your own cheeses, and can and preserve all the fresh produce you can for the long cold winter months ahead.  She and her family did all that, but I never got the feeling that she was judging those who don’t. The book is designed to make you think.  That’s all.  Think about where our food comes from and make personal choices that work for us.  This is almost January.  We are in the middle of an icy wind storm in NJ.  There won’t be fresh local produce available here for months.  I travel too much to be able to grow, tend, harvest and preserve my own foods for my family, but I loved the passion she showed, for understanding and documenting the process from the beginning of working the ground while it is still partially frozen to glorious meals with the simplest and freshest ingredients.

I feel like that, working a basic necessity of life, from the very beginning, from the raw sheep fleece, spinning the yarn, (Ok I do cheat and buy yarn on a cone…) dying it in bright colors that make my heart sing.  Working the yarn into a cloth, carefully threading the loom, weaving the fabric row by row, and taking the finished fabric and turning it into a spectacular garment to celebrate and decorate my body.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  I completely get what it means to understand a process, and to painstakingly work, step by step to achieve a goal, clothing to wear.  Yes, we’ve all heard the passerby wonder why we do this, why can’t we just to go the store and buy dishtowels, or lace, or a knitted hat, or a woven jacket.  Wouldn’t it be cheaper?  Sure.  But there is no explanation to those who ask that kind of question, they aren’t wired to appreciate that it is the process of getting dirty, of feeling fingers in the mud, of crawling under the loom to tie up the treadles, of painstakingly threading each thread through the reed and heddles of the loom, of endless weeding, of sending the shuttle flying through the shed that makes our hearts sing and our souls satisfied.  It allows me to take the time, to pay the bills, to vacuum the house, to scrub the toilets, to fold endless streams of laundry, because I know once I finish those tasks, I get to play with my yarn and create something from nothing.

Here’s to another year of creativity and passion, lift your glass in celebration of the process!  Cheers!