Dear Mother Nature…

OK, enough with this winter wonderland crap.  We are so done with the ice and snow…  If it is too much to ask, the cold isn’t the problem, it is all the cancellations that happen because you can’t keep your wet icy tears to yourself.  If you need a shoulder to cry on, could you hit up Florida or something?  They probably need the rain… (Ok, that was mean, they get nailed with hurricanes in the summer, and I hear Dallas just closed its airport for an ice storm and I can’t even begin to wrap my head around what’s happening in Australia)…

There, I feel better.

I’m really really lucky in a way.  First, I don’t have to get up and go to work no matter what the weather.  I work 20 feet from the bedroom. My class at the community college was cancelled yet again.  Since I control the curriculum, I can easily adjust, condense, and rework the curriculum so we get it all in in a shorter amount of classes.  And the guild meeting tomorrow night, where I was to present my newest seminar on warping from Front to Back, well that’s been moved to March.  No one died, I can wait another month.  The fact that my daughter’s midterm exams keep getting pushed off, well that just gives her more time to study.  And because my son has a four wheel drive truck and lives 10 minutes from Target, allows him to get to work when no one else can, earning him many kudos for his attendance.  I am crossing my fingers my husband Kevin will make it home tomorrow from Saudi, of course there are worse places to get stuck than Frankfurt Germany.

So far the gutters with 200 pounds of ice p.s.i. are holding, we went out all the second story windows in the house yesterday afternoon with a long stick, knocking all the three foot icicles off the gutters to help reduce the weight.  If there is ceiling damage from all the ice dams up on the roof, I’m sure we won’t be the only ones, and I’ve got my guy Larry.  That’s why you have homeowners insurance.

So what did I do with my gray miserable icy day?  🙂

First, let me start with yesterday.  I worked all week/weekend on my proposals for Convergence Long Beach 2012.  They take a huge amount of effort, especially since they encourage you to come up with new fresh ideas for workshops and seminars.  Sandy Bowles, executive director of HGA asked me to really work hard to come up with some new stuff after the Albuquerque Convergence in July.  I’ve been tossing around ideas since then.  It is hard to invent something untested, but I played around with ideas and think what I submitted can work well.  If I’m not accepted to teach there in 2012, I’ll have a bunch of new stuff to offer on my website.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, yesterday I mailed the whole packet including CD’s of my images off to Florida to the committee.  A job well done.  And last night, I finished off the wool plaid dress.  It is really cute.  OK, the belt is the wrong brown, but that’s easily fixed if I can ever get out and go shopping.

Today, while waiting for all the cancellations to come in, I wove another scarf,  and planned a couple more projects.  This is the part I like best.  And I have the greatest stash to work from.

Project 1…

This is a cotton/rayon and metallic fabric, I’ve been sitting on for a long time.  I recently purchased a couple of Vogue patterns when they were having their $4.99 sale and I loved the detailing of this suit.  I think there is enough fabric to make the whole suit, though I’m not sure I will wear both pieces together.  Might be a bit much.  However, I really like both pieces and I think I’ll enjoy the challenge of the details.  Speaking of details…

Sidebar…  It has been on my list to make a jacket or something that contains inkle woven trim, something more dressmaker like, rather than handwoven like.  I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well here, but I teach inkle weaving, “Weave your own trim” to non weavers at places like the American Sewing Guild conferences and I’d like to have a suit or something from commercial fabric that involves inkle woven trim instead of trimming a handwoven garment.  Make sense?  Anyway, this jacket is perfect.  I have plenty of metallics, white cotton, black ribbon yarn, and black rattail.  So I’m psyched to design a “trim” that would work with this jacket, I’d need 3.25 yards of 1/2″ trim, so that’s pretty easy to knock out on an inkle loom.

Project 2…

I’ve been sitting on this silk denim for a long time.  It is really beautiful, and I saw this Vogue jacket and liked the lines.  It looks a little short waisted so I’ll probably lengthen it, and I think I have plenty of fabric to work with.  I scrounged through my zipper box and found some great zippers for the front details, and I scrounged in my stash in the sky, the frigid attic, scrounging quickly since I was still in my pajamas (don’t ask).  I found a box with scraps of shearling, very organic, and I think I can create a removable collar and cuffs with the shearling, so the jacket can be cleaned.

So that’s what I did with my icy Tuesday where everything on the calendar for the next day or two has been cancelled.  It will be interesting to hear what Puxatawney Phil does tomorrow on groundhog day, in the middle of an ice storm there is little chance he will see his shadow and dive back underground.  Chances are he won’t bother to surface in the first place.  So maybe we won’t have six more weeks of winter?

Stay tuned…