Where the heck am I?

If it is Tuesday it must be…

I’ve completely lost track of days, and am just showing up where my hostesses put me and doing my job with as much grace, humor, and professionalism as I can.  But I don’t really have any idea where I am or what day it is.

I flew into Seattle oh, sometime last week I think, and my driver Judy and her husband dropped me off somewhere near Olympia.  I think it was a town called Lacey.  My hostess welcomed me and showed me around and out the back deck door I saw this…

Dang, I get to see/live in, some pretty cool places.  Apparently this is Long Lake.

The Olympia Weavers are a wonderful group of course, and our location, a neighbourhood Fire house, was lovely and spacious and well enough lit and we had a great two days making vests.  Two days is never enough time, though really three days or four days, or whatever time they get, it is never enough time!

There were lots of beautiful handwoven fabrics…

Though we didn’t all finish our vests, most were far enough to just have the armbands to finish up.

In the afternoons, my hostess Lana and I would walk her little dogs around the lake.  This is Grace and Oly.  Grace is the little one that looks like a wind up toy.

We even went paddle boating one afternoon.

We reconfigured the room for another one day workshop, this time on Seam and Edge Finishes.  They worked hard on lots of samples and learned tons of techniques.

Last Friday, at least I think it was Friday, I gave a guild presentation in the afternoon, Great Garments from Handwoven cloth, and then I was whisked away by Judy and Larye and we started the trek north to the Skagit Valley, somewhere in northwestern Washington State.  Larye drove us the long way around, taking the scenic route, including a ferry to Whidbey Island.  We were the first car up front.

We drove through Whidbey Island and headed over Deception Pass, just as the sun was setting.  Timing.  I was sitting on the opposite side in the passenger seat, but Judy who was in the back, grabbed her camera and actually got a shot of the setting sun.  It was a spectacular site, fiery sky and perfect cloud formations, and it lasted only for an instant doing 50 miles an hour over the pass.

We arrived somewhere in the middle of the woods, somewhere in Washington State.  It was dark and my hostess Anne showed me my room, handed me a glass of wine and I don’t remember much after that.

I woke up and headed off to the next class, a three day jacket class with the Skagit Valley Weavers.  Another really fun group in another lovely neighbourhood Fire house.

The space was great, and well lit…

There were of course some beautiful handwoven fabrics here too…

There were two women who had taken my jacket class two years ago at the ANWG conference in Bellingham.  My hostess Anne finished her jacket in the interim, but I had not seen it completely finished.  It came out really well. She spent the three days repurposing some of her old handwoven garments that needed some serious restyling and updating.

Molly was on the committee running the ANWG conference.  Sadly the committee members are always running around like crazy people never getting to sit long enough to enjoy a conference class.  Molly was determined to finally finish her jacket.  She is very happy. (That’s Molly and Val on the left)

And the rest of the class by the end of the three days had almost completed jackets, missing a sleeve here and there, but there were lots of smiles and it always warms my heart when I hear, “When can you come back?”.  I’ve gotten lots of encouragement to move to the west coast on this trip… 🙂

We left the Skagit Valley this afternoon, and my lovely driver Val got me back down to Seattle where I start a Two Day Garment Construction Workshop.  I still have no idea what day it is, but everyone is following my itinerary I set late last fall, and so far we have had smooth connections and my hostesses couldn’t be more accommodating.

I have another week to go, and I’m not sure I want to travel back to Jersey anytime soon.  The weather here has been so incredibly glorious, and the spring blooms so prolific, I’m starting to wonder if all the “Pacific Northwest always rains” hype is just a ruse to keep people out!  Meanwhile I’m getting all kinds of warnings from the weather app on my phone from NJ.  Lets see, there are apparently violent thunderstorms tonight, something about flooding, and a couple of days ago, there were wildfire warnings with temps hitting 80 and humidity 25%.  In NJ?  I left three weeks ago and it was 25 degrees.  There are no words…

Stay tuned…