A bucket full at a time…

There is no other way to accomplish the tasks that life sends your way but to do them a minute at a time, a day at a time, a bucket full at a time…  I’m actually pretty good at working this way.  I’ve sampled most of my dye cabinet by running small batches, one a day over a six week period.  Bobbin lace projects work well doing one repeat at a time.  Spinning gets accomplished one bobbin at a time.  Weaving cloth goes well a yard at a time.  And sewing projects get finished by completing a garment section at a time.

Cleaning my house is systematic, one room a day.  By the time I finish all the rooms, it is time to start all over again.  Sadly I’ve been so swamped in the studio, I have neglected to address the house, and it is pretty dirty.  So I need to just focus, and accomplish one room at a time and all will be well.

The unexpected onslaught of summer, in mid April has everyone scrambling with outdoor work.  The absence of my husband for the last two years has meant that neither of us has kept up with the yard work, which is pretty critical when you have a half acre of gorgeous manicured gardens.  Perennials seed themselves and run amok when you aren’t watching.  The rain and flooding of last year brought a bumper crop of weeds.  I’m talking mutant.  Bushes…  Not lovely shrubbery.  Bushes that are really weeds in disguise.  We can’t uncover the netting on the ponds yet because the plants haven’t grown up enough to protect the fish from predators.  Go figure…

And the failure of our airconditioning system last summer has finally come down to hiring a contractor to replace the 25 year old system, which is great, except, the attic needs to be completely cleaned out to provide access to the air handler.  Sigh.

For someone who borders on OCD, this is all very distressing.  I’m a bit overwhelmed and struggling with where to start.  I have four looms with warps, and none of them are being woven.  I have a jacket in pieces on the cutting table and nothing happening there.  I have a huge travel schedule for the rest of the spring/summer/fall, (this is what I do after all) and mostly my days are spent preparing for the next venue, stuck at my desk, answering emails that come in about 5 per minute, all needing something important, and I’m unable to get to blog posts, attic clearing, weaving, weeding, mulching, cleaning, sewing, spinning, or any of the tasks that need my attention.

Sigh…

And so dear readers, fret not, this too shall pass, for I enjoyed a lovely four months over the winter where I spent my days creating in the studio and exploring new venues and ideas.  That time will come again, so I just have to put one foot in front of the other, one bucket full of mulch at a time.

I did teach a workshop this weekend in Vermont, what a glorious time to drive through the Green Mountains, and of course, the New Englanders who took my workshop, some coming over from New Hampshire couldn’t have been more lovely to work with.  The class was one of my new two day workshops, called Weave a Memory.  Participants come in with pre-warped looms, and photos from their lives that mean something to them.  They learn how to use Photoshop to alter and correct images, and we print them on cloth.  They cut them into strips and weave the cloth back together into memories.  It is pretty amazing to watch.  And I took absolutely no photos.  Not one.  Mostly because I spent the entire second day at the laptop/scanner/printer helping students process their photos.  I loved hearing the stories from each photo, seeing what’s important to each participant.  And I loved seeing how the photos came together on the loom.  I’m hoping one of the students sends me a photo or two from the workshop, I know pictures were taken.

And now that my son is awake, I’ll feed him and caffeinate him and I will attempt to go up in the attic to start clearing away all of my studio overflow.  There are about 15 looms up there, mostly Inkle, and boxes and crates of leftover handwoven fabric, early handwoven garments, scrap fabrics, buttons, belt buckles, shearling scraps, retired weaving and sewing equipment, and stuff I probably don’t know exists.  I’m not sure where to put it at this point, because most of it eventually gets used.  Fiber stashes always outlive life expectancy…

Stay tuned…