Thanksgiving is when?

The power was barely on when I was frantically ironing and prepping work I dug out of the archives for the guild show and sale.  No rest for the weary.  I still haven’t completely vacuumed the house, which I obviously couldn’t do while the power was out, and who could see the dirt/dog hair anyway, because once the power came back on, I hit the ground running.

The guild sale was an incredible success.  For me anyway.  I sold 36 pieces, much of it older work, and a third of it went to one of my favorite customers, who has an incredible collection of my work dating back to the early 1980’s and I could have a retrospective of my work with just her collection.  Some of what she bought matched pieces she already owned.  I was thrilled to have someone come in who is so supportive and still after all these years, loves my work.

The fact that the guild sale happened at all, was a miracle.  Dodging power outages, and downed trees, we managed to have a decent showing, most of the conversations started with, “Do you have power yet?” (The answers were mostly no.) Followed by, “How much damage did you suffer?”  (Replies there were all over the place…  Some lost homes, some just lost roofs, some had homes at the shore, including guild members, who didn’t know yet if their houses survived.)

And so I talked to so many people, and it was more than the usual number of interested persons, that said they’ve wanted to take up weaving for as long as they can remember.  I’m not sure if weaving is coming back into vogue or what, but the longing look in the eyes of the storm weary was something really special, and I spent a lot of time promoting the craft and suggesting where to learn.  One funny story, Sunday morning, I was talking to a woman who was clearly interested in the construction of a pieced mohair poncho, I gathered she was a quilter, and I spent a good amount of time talking about the process.  Explaining that handwoven fabric can be fringed easily, she smiled and told me how she had been re-reading an article in the previous issue of Threads Magazine, just that morning, on working with handwoven fabric, and she really really thought she might want to learn to weave.  I smiled and said, “Actually, I wrote that article…”  The look on her face was priceless, I introduced myself, and she turned out to be quite the collector of historic textiles, the most interesting woman and that sort of describes my whole weekend.  Successful, poignant, whirlwind, encouraging, and downright fun.  Working the floor reminded me of my days in retailing.  You meet the most wonderful people, sell much more merchandise, and attract many many more weavers to the craft when you work the floor.

So Monday morning, when my husband called from the office to tell me that they needed him on a long term assignment starting immediately and that he’d be coming home to pack, I was a bit surprised, but considering his track record, not really that surprised.  I asked him where he was going and for how long, and he said, “North Carolina”, and “I’ll be home for the weekend and then around next week for Thanksgiving”…

I responded with, “What do you mean you’ll be home next week for Thanksgiving?”  Thanksgiving is a couple weeks away right?  I have this vague recollection of Halloween being cancelled, and they living in the dark for 10 days, but Thanksgiving?  Next week?  Can’t be…

Actually, my daughter is planning to return home on Tuesday, we will be traveling to Maryland to visit family briefly since she has to get back to college, and then it is almost December.  How is this possible?  How can I lose the entire month of November?  I’m starting to panic a bit.  No surprise there, and I’m kinda pissed.  I have a six page article due and I am making very slow progress, and I looked forward to my down time in the studio, through the winter for time for me to be creative and refill the cup so to speak, and I only have November through January to do that, and so far, November looks like a wash.  Sigh…

Still, in spite of everything, I’m building a lovely jacket, simple in structure, for the article I’m writing for a sewing publication, and though progress is slow, because life just seems to be getting in the way, I’m happy with the way it is turning out and the way the article is forming in my head.  The fabric was woven by my weaving guild mate Jerri Shankler, in a guild challenge/exchange, I gave her the yarn, and she wove something for me.  I’ve been sitting on this fabric for a couple years, and I think the right style/purpose just came to me as the storm was brewing.

And for those who were wondering how the crimped scarves I mentioned a couple blog posts ago came out, I spent one evening, by oil lamp, pulling up the crimp threads, creating a giant coil of two scarves, crimped up to within an inch of their lives, and I rooted around in the garage with a flashlight, finding the lid to my canner.  I washed it and set it on the stove, (natural gas, I just had to light it with a match) and put the coiled up scarves in the steamer basket and let them steam on the stove for awhile.  Once they were dry, which was pretty quick considering I have a wood stove that burned constantly for ten days, and I removed the threads, I liked the way the cloth crimped, yet I didn’t like the way the scarves felt.  The synthetic I used for the weft wasn’t as soft and drapey as the original weft I had used, which was Tencel, and in retrospect, I should have stayed with the Tencel weft and added an additional polyester sewing thread, but you don’t know these things until you actually try them.  You win some, you lose some, and the rest you sell at guild sales.  All in all, since the storm passed and the lights came on, it has been a good few days, trying to get back into some rhythm, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around  the fact that Thanksgiving is next week…

Oh, and the poncho was one of the pieces I didn’t sell, those who tried it on sort of looked like refuges from the 1970’s, peace love and rock and roll, and so when I came home, I turned the poncho into a mohair throw, and it is a wonderful fun very very warm throw, and now my dilemma is whether to keep it for myself or put it out for next year’s sale…

Stay tuned…