With a little help for my friends…

My husband made it perfectly clear I hadn’t posted in almost two weeks.  See here’s the thing…  Sometimes life gets in the way, and it isn’t that there isn’t anything to post, it is just that life is too crazy to sit down and put thoughts on paper.  This was one of those weeks, or should I say two, where sitting down at the keyboard to put thoughts on paper, or rather the screen in front of me, meant that my head came crashing down on the keyboard in a big loud snore…

It started about six hours after my last post of my grand adventures on Washington Island and my Sievers Class.  I was woken Tuesday morning, this would be a couple weeks ago at this point, with a frantic call from my friend and neighbor who found herself in the final days of moving with no help and seriously behind and no idea how she was going to pull off this move.  I won’t begin to speculate or judge how this happened, just that, when a friend calls, if I can help, I really give it the old college try.  Because that’s what friends do, and because many many times in my life there have people who have stepped up to the plate and made the impossible possible for me.

So I put on my sneakers and some old clothes and in 95 degree temps I packed and hauled and loaded and unloaded a friend’s home of 20 years, and moved her an hour west to a remote part of western NJ.  Yes, there is a remote part of NJ where bears roam, and trout swim, and there are more trees than houses, and though it doesn’t really appeal to me, (I like walking into town…) it suits her well and I wish her all the best.

Meanwhile, I’ve never been so exhausted, and I realized from this little adventure that

1) I can never ever move…

2) packing someone else’s debris reminds you how much debris of your own lurks in every orifice of your home

3) things you thought were important probably aren’t to anyone else

4) I can never ever move…

I also made a pact with myself (which has of course already been broken, but in my defense it has been a hell of a couple weeks) that I would

1) resolve to clean out one drawer or shelf a day, or at least a couple a week, and sort through the detritus of life and let go that which isn’t really critical for the future

2) move one large piece of furniture every couple of weeks and clean behind it

And so, not only did I give my friend in need a few precious days of my time, I also helped cheer another friend who is having some personal family drama interfere with her joy and well being, and we did what any self respecting couple of girlfriends should do, we went shopping, played music, ate chocolate, drank wine, and let the drama wash over us and float away.  I was seriously glad to help out on that one…

And my husband and my daughter came home, so attention was needed there, I went on dates with my husband to dinner (seriously excellent) and the theater (seriously awesome show), and had some quality time with my daughter, however brief, and paid attention to the really important things in life.

And I paid attention to my property, where Tuesday this past week, we had a crane come in again and remove four large trees from the property, and huge sections of two additional oaks, that were hanging over the house, and with complete respect for the power of the storms we’ve had this past year, this was a good thing.  This is the second time we’ve had tree work down with a crane, and I’m am in awe…

My husband and my son spent the day chopping up the trunks and main limbs of the trees we had taken down, working as fast as they brought the trees to the front yard, and my husband created enough fire wood to last us the next twenty years.  My son hauled it all to the back and stacked huge piles of downed trees, which will eventually get split and stacked as firewood.  Bring on the winter…  (I’d much rather have it 30 degrees than 95 degrees…)

And we spent many hours fixing ponds and stone that the dog, who loves to chase frogs knocked about, and mulched and tidied, and generally enjoyed this brief time where we were all home together.

I did occasionally enter the studio, there was a day where I had to print and ship all the handouts for the American Sewing Guild lecture I will give next Saturday in Arroyo Grande, CA.  If you live near the central coast of California and you won’t be attending Convergence, come on up/down and attend my series of three seminars on garment construction.

I did decide in all this madness and drama over the past two weeks to do something really centering and I was glad I had a run of dishtowels on the loom that allowed me to just sit and weave in the evenings and forget about all the stresses that surround us.

And I spent a day or two or three pouring over the author edits for my six page article for the next issue of Threads magazine.  It looks beautiful and I can’t wait to see the final spread in print.  It feels good to work with a print publication again.

And I did a little shopping when I could.  One of my Sievers’ students Ginnie, brought a wonderful grouping of garment construction text books to class, and I immediately came home and searched Amazon and ordered them, and in addition, Vogue was having it’s $1.99 clearance sale of discontinued patterns and well, how could I not?

Except, my system sort of backfired, because, even though I have all 395 patterns I own filed in the computer and cross referenced, I still managed to purchase a pattern I already owned, and when I went to put the new sewing books on the shelf, damned if I didn’t already have the Roberta Carr book.  Which is quite delightful I might add.  She has directions for the same triangular bound buttonholes I teach in my classes, that’s only the second time I’ve ever seen directions for this type of buttonhole in print, the first was an old Sew News publication from about 20 years ago.

I have too much stuff and can never ever move…

And so dear readers, I am packed and ready to go, on my grand California adventure, two weeks and probably eight different beds, with my husband in tow, stopping along the way to visit with good fiber friends, and a couple of relatives, and looking forward to temperatures in the 70’s instead of 90’s.  I will be at Convergence in Long Beach on Wednesday to give my lecture on washing fabric when it comes off the loom, there are lots of new samples to touch and feel, and then Wednesday  night my husband and I will attend the Convergence fashion show, where I have three pieces coming down the runway, and later on exhibit, and I’ll get to see my vest with the inkle woven bands on display in the faculty exhibit, and my yardage hanging from the balcony in the yardage exhibit.  I’ll do a quick run through of the vendor haul Thursday morning and then we will head up the coast to the third stop in Arroyo Grande for my ASG lectures.  The first stop is actually in San Diego with my excellent friends Amy and Bill where you might remember last year’s adventure felting a very large vessel in the shower.  We will only be there for a day and a half so we can’t get into too much trouble…

Stay tuned…