I’m celebrating!

It’s been a week!

I’m celebrating because with the help of my hired help home for January neighborhood college Sophomore from down the street, I got the 900 end linen and sewing thread warp on the table loom for the commission I have to do!  Yippee!

I’m celebrating because I’m down to the last dozen give or take dyes in my collection.  And while my helper wound skeins, I wrote my 50 slide presentation on Warping from Front to Back, which I’m giving my guild in February, and then plan to make it into another monograph.  I’m celebrating because  great friend and weaver and frequent commenter Ginnie  proofed it and only found three small grammar goofs.  One of them we still aren’t completely sure about, is it “tying onto the front apron bar” or “tying on to the front apron bar”? After a Google search we determined it was “tying on” to the front apron bar, but I’m open to other opinions on this one…

I’m celebrating because I didn’t have to get up at 6:20am this morning to get my daughter off to school because guess what?  There was no school!  We had a snow day!  And I’m celebrating because the decision was made the night before and I wasn’t woken at 5:30am by every phone in the house and my cell jangling off the hook, and the text messages as well.  Yippee!

I’m celebrating because I have a bunch of young adults living in my house and they cleared all the cars and the walks and the driveway and I didn’t have to get out of my bedroom slippers all day.  (Truth be told, I didn’t get out of my pajamas all day except to do the photo shoot for …)

I’m celebrating because I finished the tunic!  It looks great in the photo, but I’m not completely happy with it, it is held together with two buttons, and the facing does odd things as it moves around.  I’m going to study this, handsewing the facing down would more than likely leave a slight ridge, this is after all shirting fabric.  Topstitching would be out of the question since it would interfere with the pleats.  I wouldn’t have seen this in a muslin because I wouldn’t have put the facings in.  The fit is great, I’m happy I went with the smaller size, it feels really comfortable in the shoulders.  I’m thinking I might do a small running stitch behind one of the pleats to hold the facing down?  Hmmmm………

I’m celebrating because I got more than an entire fleece washed in anticipation of my course I’m teaching at County College of Morris starting next Tuesday night.  I think there are still a couple of spots left in the class, the information is on my schedule on my website, but I’m really getting psyched about this fourteen week course, covering carding wool, spinning on a drop spindle, dyeing protein fibers with food grade dyes, plaiting, felting, needle felting, kumihimo, crochet, inkle loom weaving, tapestry weaving, and shaft loom weaving.   I believe walk in registration is January 13-15 at the college, and the class is in the Design Department under special topics.  The section number can be found here.

And I’m celebrating because it has been ten years almost to the day since I’ve been called “professor”.  Ten years ago I got a frantic call from the head of the fiber department at Montclair State University.  She had been diagnosed with a stage four cancer and one of the other professors had just died suddenly.  They were desperate for someone to step in and teach the structural fibers classes.  It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, trying to pull together samples and examples, handouts and presentations on fourteen different fiber topics, with only a couple weeks notice, some I hadn’t done since I was a student there in the 70’s.  But it was also the most rewarding teaching I’d ever done.  It broke my spirit when I had to leave when I was diagnosed with cancer myself.  I’ve always hoped the universe would right itself somehow and I’d have the opportunity again to teach in academia.  And through a series of cosmic coincidences, it looks like I’ll get my chance.  Anyway, I’m giving it everything I’ve got, they have no equipment so I’m providing everything.  One of the members of my weaving guild has offered extra equipment, like carders, and a maru-dai for kumihimo.  I’m teaching it with a foam disk, but it would be nice to show the real piece of equipment used for the process.  That’s one thing I never acquired.  And rumor has it that she has a secret stash of Paas Easter Egg dyes.  I don’t think the kits will be out in the stores yet when I do the dyeing unit on wool.  I’m going to owe her a fantastic dinner when all this is done.

Anyway, I got my contracts in the mail, addressed to Professor Daryl Lancaster.  Can you see me smiling?