A random Tuesday…

And so I have returned from a most excellent weekend, teaching in my favorite yarn store, WEBS, and visiting with my favorite daughter (well actually my only daughter) up at college.  Both locations were within ten miles of each other.  How brilliant was that decision to send my daughter to college near my favorite yarn store?  And I am scheduled to return in two weeks to teach a one day class in color and inspiration!

I drove up in style, in my new Toyota Rav4, which is the most comfortable car I’ve ever driven (OK, mostly I’ve had low end transportation, never anything with a moon roof, and heated seats), and I listened to a recorded book, one of my all time favorites, Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Sea.  Excellent read.  I adore historical fiction, gripping sagas that span three generations, in this case, four.

My class at WEBS was terrific, enthusiastic, and a joy to teach, and all wanted to return within the year for an actual hands on garment construction class, where they actually make a garment.  I’m game…  I spent Friday and Saturday evenings with my daughter, taking Brianna and her roommate out for a sushi dinner Friday night and Panera on Satuday.  She is becoming so grown up.  Sigh.  What a joy to watch her, and I adore her sense of humor.

And of course, all instructors get a nice discount when they teach at WEBS, though there wasn’t a whole lot of time to shop.  Since the store wasn’t open technically for shopping on Sunday, that gave me about 40 minutes Saturday afternoon when the class ended to see how much damage I could do.  In the end, not too much.  See, there isn’t anything I really, really needed.  OK, I was out of sock yarn, and I did pick up enough for two more pairs of socks, but I’m not flying as much this year, more car travel, and I think they frown upon knitting and driving at the same time, so I don’t expect to blow through the quantity of socks I’ve knit the past couple of years.

I bought more Cotlin, a linen cotton yarn great for dishtowels.  I can’t believe I’m writing this, me, the 35 year experienced weaver who never wove a dishtowel until about a year ago when I participated in the guild dishtowel exchange, really enjoyed weaving some dishtowels, and using them as gifts.  Sadly I gave away all I’d woven, and didn’t get to keep even one for myself.  So that means I just have to rewarp for another run… 🙂

And buttons.  I bought buttons.  Because they are small, take up no room in the studio, and are at the ready when I need them for a project.  And I got a discount.  What’s not to like…

Now I’m home, and dealing with all the paperwork, and things that make a business a real business.  I’d rather be making something fun in the studio, but this is also my job and job related tasks sort of get in the way.  There is always the next workshop to organize and plan, supplies to order, contracts and proposals to write, and I’m working on a more expanded article for Threads Magazine.

Speaking of workshops…

I am scheduled to teach in Asheville NC the last week in May, at the Sutherland Handweaving Studio.  And I hear there are still openings…

May 29-June 2, 2012: Daryl Lancaster presents 5-day, A Wearable Extravaganza: Wrap your body in clothing from your own hands.

It doesn’t get any better than this.  May/June in Asheville, NC, with some fun handweavers (this is the group who housed me with Barb B a couple of summers ago, she had a wood fired brick oven in the back wall of her house and we made home made pizzas and fired them in the oven, the same house with the chandelier over my bed…) and my favorite class to teach.  This is one of those rare opportunities to have it all, to actually learn as much as I can teach in a five day class on Garment Construction, and the chance to make a garment as well, if you are new to garment construction or just returning from a 25 year hiatus, or still in therapy from that 8th grade apron experience, I’ll have you make my basic jacket, and you’ll get your feet wet and have a great jacket to wear, and for those with more experience, and those who’ve done a jacket with me in another class anywhere in the country, bring your own agenda, and create what you want to make.  Not just for handweavers, anyone who wants to sew, any level can benefit from this kind of class, and really, Asheville, NC in May/June? Just down the road from Waechter’s Silk Shop?  Enough said…  More info?  Contact info@sutherlandhandweaving.com

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

I found out this morning, that in fact, all three of my garments were accepted to the Convergence fashion show in Long Beach this summer.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.  I knew I had been accepted, but I kept waiting for the paperwork to find out which piece/pieces would walk the runway.  Silly me.  I planned to send whatever wasn’t accepted to the Leader’s Exhibit.  Silly me.  So I had to scramble and come up with plan B, which I’m pretty good at, and between the faculty piece and the yardage that was accepted as well, I’ll have five pieces on display.

And, I decided to make a commitment to the project I’ve been mulling over since I posted about it last month.  To summarize, I decided to remake the tencel gown I wove for the Convergence Challenge project from 2008, it didn’t fit me, I’d have had to remake it anyway (that’s my daughter in the photo), and I’m not in need of another handwoven dress/gown, I really would prefer to have a jacket, and I pulled out a pile of patterns and stared at them for a good couple of weeks, testing the pattern pieces to see if I could get them out of the odd shaped pieces that made up the gown.

I was given this pattern by one of my guild mates at the last meeting, and it was the first one I tried.  No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the pieces to fit on the gown panels.  I tried other patterns and kept coming back to this one.  You will recall I made this amazing piece of felt to coordinate with the tencel after my trip in February to Iowa, and I kept seeing the collar made from the felt.

But there wasn’t enough of the tencel in the gown…

After showing the pattern to anyone who came into my studio, and hearing over and over, you have to figure out how to make that work…  I decided that the only thing I could do was to weave more fabric since I had additional yarn from the original challenge.  That isn’t in my nature, I pride myself on making it work, but today, I finally made my decision.  I carefully traced all the pattern pieces like I usually do, with alterations for my shape, and that gave me a more exact fit for the panels.  I sewed the pattern pieces together to make sure I was going to like this jacket before I went to the muslin.  And of course I love it.

And then I tried one more layout to see how much fabric I would really need to reweave.  I moved things around.  I stared at the patterns.  I moved them around some more.  And I started to actually take the gown apart, seam by seam.  And then I decided that I could run a horizontal seam at waist height across the center back panel and it would be a lovely design line, and if I did that, I might come within a warp thread or two of making it work with the panels of tencel I have, and I wouldn’t have to weave any additional fabric.  I’d have to selvedge butt the front side panels to squeak out another inch of width, but I do that all the time and I have lots and lots of selvedge.  Mostly the join would be hidden in the seam allowance anyway.

I’m thinking this is going to work.

Stay tuned…