Blog Entries – Page 140

I am in Hiding…

I feel like I disappeared off the face of the earth. Literally. This is a good thing…

I sooo needed a vacation, a real vacation, where there isn’t a calendar or agenda, where the days just blend together, where people you care about surround you, and stress is no longer part of your chemical make-up. At least for the week…

I have stayed in touch with a few of the classmates I went through school with, through reunions, many of them I went all the way through parochial school with before attending a public high school. A couple of them I’ve known since Kindergarten. Debbie and her husband retired to Hilton Head, SC, and built a spectacular home nestled in gnarled vegetation, dripping with Spanish Moss, typical of the Carolina coast line. Debbie is still able to work from home, except home is dangerously close to paradise…

Anyway, three of us, and our significant others, descended on Debbie and her husband for a week of, well, stress free wallowing in paradise. It doesn’t get any better than this…

The back of the house faces the lagoon. There are a couple of ponds and waterfalls on the lovely walkway down to the water.

We are looking forward to boating down the lagoon.

It has rained a lot since we’ve been here, but I never mind the rain. Especially a coastal Carolina thunderstorm. It is powerful, and enveloping, and the perfect thing to make you feel insignificant and not at all in charge. And the storms have done a wonderful job of breaking the heat.

We have all helped in the kitchen…

…dressed for dinner…

…had some spectacular meals together…

We enjoyed morning yoga on the deck, (who knew the girl I’ve known since kindergarten just finished her yoga instructor training!)…

And of course, the spectacular beaches of the Carolina’s, where the water is the temperature of bath water…

Pardon me if I don’t blog too regularly while I’m here. I think you can understand why…

MLH turns 50

I made it through the conference! I gave my final two seminars on Sunday. The morning seminar topic was Photographing Your Work, and I am always thrilled when students come up afterwords and tell me how much they learned and how they will record images of their work, very differently, as a result of my seminar.

The conference began winding down after lunch. Exhibits closed, work was returned, last minute sales at the vendors. I returned to my classroom to prepare for the last seminar. This is the one I spent the last 6 months researching, the topic was Website Success. I’ll have the monograph for sale on my website when I return from all my adventures. I didn’t want to offer the monograph for sale until I ran the seminar, and I am really happy with how it read.

Anyone who has ever taken a seminar from me can tell you, you will probably end up with way more information than you th0ught you’d need, but I always think that more information is better than not enough. Website design is one of those topics where you can attend classes for years, and buy thousands of pounds of manuals and still not make a dent in it, and when you finally do, the standards and language change and you have to start all over again. That said, I was happy with the amount of information I disseminated in a mere 2 1/2 hours, and I only ran 8 minutes over. The fact that they saved the most technologically sophisticated seminar for the end of the conference when everyone who attended was practically brain dead, was pretty funny. Still, all 10 participants stayed with me, payed attention, asked questions, and seemed like they were understanding. If there is anyone out there who attended the Website Success seminar and would like to give me feedback, I’d appreciate an email. theweaver@weaversew.com. Did it meet your expectations, was it too much information or not enough, was it entertaining, were you struggling to understand?

I left the conference about 15 minutes after the last seminar, I was picked up by one of the conference attendees who lives locally. Sue drove me back to her house, and served me a lovely dinner, fresh salad, fresh veggies, wine, and great company. We chatted for awhile, and I did something I haven’t done since I was a kid. I went to bed at 8pm. I was exhausted…

Robyn Spady called me about 9pm to let me know that serious weather issues grounded some planes and delayed others, she finally managed to get out of Grand Rapids after a two hour airport delay. Some of the instructors traveling Sunday night ended up having to spend an additional night in Grand Rapids. I was very very grateful for my cozy bed, excellent dinner, and early bedtime.

I woke around 1am to a wicked thunder storm. It lasted for a couple of hours, and then I went back to sleep around 4am. Since I had already had a decent amount of sleep, I drifted into one of those sleep levels where you dream outrageous things. There were people flying in my dream, without the benefit of airplanes, crazy costumes, and then I was in an airport where everyone was dressed in red and gray, which you should know were the colors of my parochial school uniform. I wore red and gray plaid for 6 years. And on Wednesday I am traveling to South Carolina for a reunion of sorts with some of my classmates and their spouses from my parochial school days. I must have red and gray on my mind.

An easy early morning flight, and I am now in NJ. I dove right into unpacking, and bookkeeping, banking, and filling orders for monographs and interfacings that were ordered at the conferences.

Last Saturday I breezed through many of the MLH exhibits, all held at the Holland Arts Council, I wish I’d had more time to view them, but I was grateful for what time I had, and that I could grab a few shots of the installations.

This exhibit is a retrospective of 50 years of handweaving from the Michigan League of Handweavers. It was a terrific exhibit, through September 18th, and really grasped the range of styles and disciplines of the handweaver over the last 50 years. Enjoy the images…

Saturday in Michigan

Hopefully I can make this a short post, it was a busy day, I’m tired, and I have one more full day of seminars to teach before I make my way home to NJ.

I started the morning, picking up where I left off last night, by doing the final judging of the fashion show. Having seen the pieces on the runway, made it so much easier to do my job. I was through judging, writing comments on all of the garments, within 3 hours. I did a few quick shots of the gallery before I left to go to lunch. There were some lovely pieces in the show, and I was pleased with the results and the winners.

Barbara VanDyke wove the fabric and constructed the beautiful white and lt. blue Chanel Style coat below, with a hand painted lining. I gave it Best in Show, it was a perfect blending of handwoven fabric, classic design, exquisite construction skills, and surface design applications.

One of the things I love about traveling, is seeing things I don’t see at home. I remember walking through Grinnell College Campus at the Midwest Weavers Conference last month in Iowa, and having Robyn Spady stop suddenly to ask if I was also seeing these tiny blinking lights all around. She had never seen fireflies! I remember the last time I taught at this conference in Michigan, it may have been 2003, and I was taken with the black squirrels. I’d never seen black squirrels before. We have bucket loads of grey squirrels back in NJ, but not black ones. I was hoping to see them again, I wasn’t disappointed, and towards the end of the afternoon, a lovely black squirrel posed for me at the base of a tree.

I was able to breeze quickly through the vendors, picking up some beautifully dyed silk hankies for spinning, though I will use them for felting, from River’s Edge Weaving Studio in Grand Ledge, MI. And I did get to the Holland Art Center to see all the exhibits. I got lots of photos there, but I’ll save them for another post.

The Fashion Show

What a great day! We concluded the three day workshop in Garment Construction Techniques, with a seminar in Closures, starting the morning with Bound Buttonholes, and then moving into Triangular Bound Buttonholes. When the students took a break to sample, I saw some really lovely triangular buttonholes coming from their sewing machines. We went on to discuss many ways to close a garment. Lots of ideas, some simple, some fun, no more excuses for outerwear with no closure!

I really loved this group! There was a huge range of skill levels in the class, some felt like they were beginners, and others were very skilled, needing some inspiration, there was even an experienced educator looking for ways to teach these kinds of techniques. I hope all got something from the class, and I’m looking forward to the weekend seminars.

After I packed up and brought my two 70 pound suitcases over to the dorm room, I went over to the fashion show rehearsal. I wasn’t actually participating in this show, but I wanted to preview the garments back stage, as I will be the judge.

As it turns out, because of the scheduling, I will have to actually judge the fashion show garments after the fashion show takes place. So I requested the privilege of actually judging the fashion show garments during the fashion show.

OK, so here is the problem. This is a pet peeve of mine. I have judged many many fashion shows over the years, and judging a fashion show, usually means, sitting in a room, with the garments, each one laid out in front of me, like a dead carcass on the table. See, I am looking at a piece of fabric, more often than not handwoven, sewn into a garment, laying on the table in front of me. I have nothing to judge the garment on but technique, suitability of weave structure, and originality of design. That isn’t really the problem, the problem is, I’m only seeing a very small piece of what this garment is about. A garment is designed to be worn, to be viewed on a body. A real body. A post menopausal female, with graying hair, and a wonderful outlook on life. I never get to see that part of the equation, who the garment was designed for, how does it fit them, does it wear them, or do they proudly wear it? Later, after judging, I get to view the real fashion show, and 40% of the time, I want to change my comments and my judging scores, because I find that the pieces come alive when they are filled out with the person whose hands created them. I love when the maker wears their own garment.

So tonight, I had a chair, and a clipboard, and a list of the garments at my disposal, and I felt like Nina Garcia on Project Runway, judging the work as it came down the runway. Wow. I cannot say how this experience has changed the way I judge a garment. I did get to preview the garments backstage before the show, but the garments came alive as they walked across the stage, and down the runway, I was really really blown away by some of the garments that just looked like nothing on the hangers.

I couldn’t actually take pictures of the pieces, I was too busy scribbling notes! After the fashion show, dessert was served, and then, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Michigan League of Handweavers, a vintage garment retrospective fashion show took place. This was so much fun. I laughed and squealed in delight, as I recognized fashion looks from the early years of handwoven clothing. I have been weaving clothing since the 1970’s, and this represented a history I really remember. I did manage to snap a few shots, the first model out wore, what else, but a 1950’s handwoven apron!

Of course every weaver remembers the horse blanket reversible poncho from handspun yarns. And then came the 60’s cotton shift, this one had cutouts in the waist area, it even had the fringe at the hem! And then who hasn’t made a leno skirt and shawl! I loved the orange color of this set.

Millie Danielson, a long time member of MLH, moderated this retrospective of vintage works, and some of the pieces were actually hers.

This very vintage ensemble of Millie’s featuring yellow hotpants, brought the house down. The commercial decorator fringe really completed the outfit! All that was missing were the white go-go boots!

Millie also created this outrageous coat, woven with warp remnants tied into the structure with Ghiordes knots. I don’t know what year she wove it, but it was a pretty impressive piece. And the model carried the whole look off effortlessly!

The finale of the retrospective show, featured none other than our own fashion icon, Anita Mayer, who wore Ann Flora’s contemporary felted coat and hat. It was a stunning piece, and she looked fabulous in it.

I of course, wore my now infamous Frosted Florals dress. Not only did I get to sign a few autographs on page 81 of the current issue of Threads Magazine where it appeared in the Readers’ Closet pages, but the latest issue of Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot has just come out on the newstands, and there were a number of copies floating around, with my new article on the Convergence Challenge project. I’ve gotten some very kind emails so far, telling me what a wonderful piece Loretta and I created. I got to autograph a number of those issues as well. My friend Robyn Spady has two articles in that issue, and since she was teaching across the hall from me, there was a lot of autographing going on!

So, tomorrow I do the final judging for the show, and I will write all my comments and choose the winners. Stay tuned…

What Day is this?

I found myself asking this question often…

I will say, after two nights uninterrupted sleep, I am actually starting to feel human. And today, for the first time in quite a few days, I felt like my brain was working on all four cylinders. I felt organized in my thoughts, and felt like I sort of made sense while I was lecturing. Everyone seemed enthusiastic, and wanted to try out all of the techniques I showed them. Today’s topic was basic sewing skills and all sorts of Seam and Edge Finishes.

I love the sound of purring sewing machines, and had all sorts of bias strips, nylon tricot, press bars, lopi yarn, and other oddities for the students to play with. My favorite seam finish of course, is the Hong Kong, and I provided some lovely pink acetate from a bolt I will never finish, to create bias strips for making the Hong Kong finish. I don’t have all my production photos in this computer, so I can’t actually show you the finish, but I think you can find it in one of my previous blogs. I also taught them to make piping, and I love to stuff the piping with soft Lopi yarn, every fiber enthusiast has a skein of that floating around in their stash. It makes great stuffing for piping and I had a ball for them to play with.

One of my other favorite seam finishes was a product called Seams Great. Sadly this product is no longer available. In essence, Seams Great was a nylon tricot bias cut strip, about 1 1/4″ wide, which encased a seam allowance beautifully, with no weight and lots of flex. So I found a source for 15 denier nylon tricot, and offer it to my students, to cut their own bias, and showed them how to use it to encase handwoven seam allowances, and to make curved shirttail hems a breeze.

I also showed them how to make bias tubes with press bars, I use a 3/8″ wide duct fastener, which looks like a cable tie on steroids. We did all kinds of interesting things with them.

When the class was winding down today, Bettie Bahen from Ann Arbor, MI, who had taken a jacket making class when I visited Ann Arbor last year, came in to show me her blouse. It was really pretty, and it looked great on her, and she proudly told me that she had used my jacket pattern to draft the blouse pattern! I was soooo impressed. She said it was the best fitting pattern she ever used, and that made me feel great! And I loved the print!

One more day of class, then I get to judge the fashion show! Tomorrow, Closures…