With Gratitude…

My husband and daughter and I drove up to the Catskills to be with my sister and her husband in their mountain cabin for Thanksgiving.  On the two hour drive up, my husband, who just returned from Saudi Arabia, said to me, “Gee, you haven’t done a blog post in awhile.”  I smiled.  My husband started to rely on my blog posts while he was away, to keep him up to date with what was going on in my life, not the mundane, but the stuff that mattered enough to post.  I’m grateful that he took the time to read them,  and notice when I’ve been delinquent…

Yes, sure I’ve been busy, but not with anything I felt the need to immediately fire out in a post.  Some of the stuff has had to do with my daughter, I mentioned a trip to Rhode Island, that was last Monday, up and back, 7 hours.  Tough day.  But successful.  I took Brianna to look at the University of Rhode Island as a possible college, and of course she loved the school.  But she honestly acknowledged that she would probably be happy almost anywhere.  The deadline for application for the Centennial Scholarship for URI, which would make it actually affordable to send her there, is this Wednesday.  I’ve been reminding her all along about this particular date, “I know MOM!  I’ve got it under control!”

Truth is, she didn’t have it under control.  See, here’s the problem.  Tech savvy eighteen year old does not understand timing that involves snail mail, and a federal holiday.  So asking the guidance office to have all her recommendations and transcripts in to the college before the deadline means taking into consideration that they aren’t ready to go, and that mail isn’t collected and delivered on Thursday, the school is actually closed Thursday – Sunday, and it takes a couple of days for the mail to reach URI from NJ.  Hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth for a couple of days, all of us working overtime to make sure everything is on its way and arriving by December 1.  Big eye roll… (And big thank you to the guidance department for working well into the night on Tuesday…)

And then there was the rite of passage on Wednesday, that’s right, the wisdom teeth removal.  Poor Bri had four wisdom teeth removed Wednesday, and spent most of Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, heavily drugged on Percocet.  🙂

And somewhere in there my wonderful long lost husband came home.  Reentry is tough for anyone who travels.  I give him a lot of credit for holding himself in check as he walked into the whirl of college app deadlines, wisdom teeth removal, and heavy sedation,  for my daughter I mean…  I’m grateful he is home.

Yet, I managed to somehow acquire an additional two looms in my studio since my last post, I know the walls are starting to bow outward, but like stray kittens, they found their way into my studio.  I have another little Structo to add to my collection.  I’m not actually collecting them, they are just the most perfect loom for teaching purposes, I can fit eight or so in my car already warped and do a unit on shaft weaving with my students.  My wonderful weaving buddy Rita swapped this little puppy for one of my scarves, newly off the loom, three have already been shipped to Santa Fe Weaving Gallery.  Rita lives in Florida and the little loom traveled to NJ with her husband via auto, we did a quick rendezvous outside Fat Burger at the Rockaway mall.

And then there was the gorgeous cherry 8 shaft Tools of the Trade table loom.  Gail (whom I’ve never met, but the weaving community is small and places like Weavolution make us all connected) found this loom in a sorry state, and carefully refinished and rebuilt it, I helped her along the way with photos of my other TOTT 4 shaft table loom, and she ended up selling it to me when it was all back together.  This loom made it’s way from Southern NJ via my sister, to the Catskills where I picked it up on Thursday.  It arrived back in my studio yesterday morning.  It really is beautiful and I’ve wanted an 8 shaft TOTT table loom for a long time.  Actually there is a 12 shaft I know exists in Ohio but I’ve given up begging the owner to sell it to me.  Anyway, Thank You Gail and Rita!

Meanwhile, I get an email Wednesday night from Madelyn van der Hoogt, editor of Handwoven Magazine.  “Would I do an article for the March/April issue, deadline January 1.”  See, this is where I consistently get into trouble.  Should I stop what I’m already knee deep in and work on an article for Handwoven?  It isn’t like this is a month with nothing on the calendar.  Of course I agreed, and will probably regret the decision along about December 25th.  I haven’t written for Handwoven Magazine since the Sept/Oct issue 2008.  I’ve written for Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, and Weavezine, but after 35 issues as the Features Editor for Handwoven, I decided to stop writing for them, for no other reason than, though I appreciated and liked the direction the magazine took, aiming for the new weavers, working with rigid heddle looms, I felt like I had nothing to say to that audience and the new format of the magazine, didn’t quite match with my writing style.  I’m a features writer.  Handwoven has become a vendor driven project magazine, some of the projects are actually amazing, and really inspiring new weavers, as it should, but I’ve never enjoyed designing projects for the masses.

I don’t design or work that way.  I take a pile of stuff and see where it takes me.  Simple as that.  I work my way through the adventure, and some of the circuitous routes I take using the oddest materials, would make for difficult explanation for a project.  Nothing I do is simple actually.  There are other writers that are far better for that purpose.  I’ve never bought yarn for a specific project, I try to make things work from what’s at hand, usually with yarn from mill ends from a long time ago.

But the bottom line is, I adore writing for Madelyn, she is by far my most favorite boss I’ve ever worked for in any capacity, so I said yes. We are talking about a feature and potential project, maybe even a kit.  That would be a first.  Of course that meant I spent much of the holiday weekend with my head spinning for ideas, concepts, possibilities, and avenues of this potential feature/project.  Obviously I didn’t get much sleep, but that’s nothing new…

Meanwhile, I’ve started exploring the next run of scarves for Santa Fe.  I pulled up another palette from my vast archives, this one called Lush Vegetation.  It is a really pretty one, and I started pulling yarn from all over the place getting ready for the yarn wrap.

And this weekend I spent a wonderful time with my family, all except my son, who is working seasonal stock shifts at Target; sad he wasn’t with us in the Catskills, but grateful he has work in this dreadful economy.  I’m grateful for Target for giving him a chance, and I’m grateful I don’t work in retailing anymore, there wasn’t such a thing as Black Friday when I worked in a mall in the mid 70’s.  My son had to be at work at 4am Friday morning.  He is exhausted, but also happy for the work.  He will have drills next weekend with the National Guard, and Target is of course willing to work around that schedule.

We spent Black Friday shopping but not at a mall.  We went to the most wonderful craft shop, Crafts People, outside of Woodstock NY, did some early Christmas shopping for ourselves, and then spent the afternoon in Woodstock NY, wandering around the town, marveling at the time warp, the head shops, the psychedelic colors, and Bob Marley, Janis, and Jimi Hendrix posters.  We had lunch in a wonderful new age restaurant, Oriole 9.  The lentil soup and falafel sandwich were excellent.  We stopped and visited with Marsha Fleisher from Loominus, Marsha has been a major force in handwoven chenille clothing, she began the craft fair circuit about when I finished up, in the late 1980’s.  Marsha has her looms and shop off the commons in Woodstock, a lovely store, and it was a pleasure to visit with her and introduce her to my family.

I’ve got another batch of yarn in the dye pot, this time I’m actually redoing a color, in a slightly lighter shade, I need more dusty purples.  And the washer/dryer are chugging along trying to catch up on all the laundry.  And I’ve walked around the house with a bucket collecting dishes and glasses, I have to do that once in awhile, teenagers tend to cause dishes to go missing…  I’ve changed the sheets, and tidied up the kitchen, and I’ll go make some dinner for the family and then back to work in the studio.

Stay tuned…