Postcard from Gatlinburg…

I’m sitting at the airport, one conference down, one more next weekend in Ontario, Canada.  I had a blast.  What a wonderful group of friendly southerners, always a treat coming from anonymous NY, and Arrowmont Craft School couldn’t have been more accomodating.  The conference was housed at Arrowmont, and the food was worth the trip.  I’ve never had so many well prepared vegetables at every meal.

Carol, one of the Tuesday Weavers from Tennessee, picked me up at the airport last Thursday and took me to lunch at a lovely restaurant, along with other members of the Tuesday Weavers who were available, considering it was Thursday, called CourtYard Grille in Alcoa, TN.

I gave the keynote address to open the conference Thursday night, and I got lots of positive feedback through the weekend.  Conference attendees came up to me and shared their personal stories, which are always heartwarming, everyone has a story, and I try in my keynote to give everyone permission to own those stories, even the painful ones and use them to make their lives more creative, more positive, and more meaningful.

For the workshop, I taught my class called Vested Interest, where participants bring bags full of scraps of handwoven cloth, vintage textiles, scraps of cloth that mean something to them, thrift store finds, old garments that don’t work, and anything else they can fit in the car.  It is always fun to see what everyone brings.

Then the fun begins.  Each participant traces my vest pattern, to fit them, and then begins to assemble the pieces into something that pleases them and uses up some of the acquired stash.  Alice Schlein, one of the other instructors, dear Alice, cleaned out her studio, and asked it we would like a couple of large garbage bags filled with odd samples, old work, industrially woven fabric cuts from her jacquard designs, etc.  The class jumped on it like termites and made quick work of those fabric scraps, many of the students incorporating a bit of Alice into their vests.  Alice was thrilled, and so were the students.  I even took a couple of small samples for my own files.

The workspace was well lit and comfortable to work in, and the students really bonded, it was a pleasure working with all of them, watching them carefully edit and push out of their comfort zone.  There is of course never enough time in a class like this, if I had two weeks, they would all still need more, but there was a beautiful sampling of gorgeous vests in pieces, all over the room, by the end of the conference.

I hit the vendor hall briefly Thursday night, sadly I was too busy to return, but I did purchase the most unusual drop spindle, called a Trindle, of course all the information and the actual spindle are in my checked bags, in the belly of the plane, so I can’t show you, but here is the Etsy site.

Enjoy photos of some of the vest under construction during the workshop!  You all did a wonderful job!