Who knew?

As you can imagine, re-entry was tough.  It was one of the reasons I didn’t want to blog as soon as I returned from my 10 days in sunny spectacular California.  The ruined businesses and condemned homes and piles of garbage in my town, were a sobering reminder of the destruction I left behind when I headed west more than a couple of weeks ago.  And of course, my 21 year old son was responsible for everything in my absence, and no one, not my husband (who is in Saudi) or my daughter (who is happily hunkering down to dorm life and farm life in her pursuit of animal studies at UMass) can keep my house the way I like.  So there is always the settling in, the finding my stuff, repairing what fell apart in my absence.  My husband I would always joke that the house gods would break things in his absence to insure his return.  The past couple of trips, I think the house gods have given up on my husband’s return, and have decided I’m fair game.  The pool was a swamp, no surprise there.  One of the ponds was empty, I corrected that, mucked out an upper spillway and reset the stone perimeter where the dog apparently went swimming, dumped six pounds of pool shock in the pool, tossed the moldy ziti in the oven into the garbage, cleaned an unmentionable and disgustingly smelly substance placed by the dog from my bedroom carpet and studio floor that my son missed because why would he go in my bedroom and studio?  My son and I fixed the kitchen drain that was leaking all over the place, cheered on by Jenny who thankfully came to clean my disgusting house the day after I flew home.  I love you Jenny, and thanks for suggesting we actually take the drain apart to see what the problem was.

And thanks for noticing that the label on the Plumber’s Putty said, “Not for use on plastic sinks…”.  Two trips to the hardware store and the drain is dry and holding.  Yeah us…  Team work…

And for those following the drama of the dog to the emergency vet hospital last Friday, which my son had to undertake in my absence, netting a diagnosis of Lyme disease and a bill of $500, all is well, and the dog has recovered.

So in all this I managed to catch up on laundry, print and ship about 20 orders for books and interfacings, work through a huge pile of mail, unpack, organize, answer emails, and I’m not completely through them all yet, sign up for a couple of tech classes at the continuing ed program at the high school, which started last night, prepare for the debut of my new two day class called Weave a Memory, which I’ll be giving to my guild, who graciously agreed to be guinea pigs, catch up with my girlfriends, chat with my daughter on Skype, and reconnect with my knitting group, so I could start a couple of new projects.  Oh yeah, and I taught an online class through Weavolution yesterday, and there is another one tomorrow night (tonight if you are reading this post on Friday).  Busy week, and I’m tired, but I’m getting back into a routine and able to say, when asked about my day, that they are now calm and easy and nothing to report.  Which is the way I like it, but as Brianna would say, that’s boring…

Speaking of, in my chat with her on Skype tonight, she mentioned that the Big E state fair is happening this week, and her animal science labs have been meeting there, so they can explore all the livestock.  Today they went on a “scavenger hunt” and she was tickled to note they had to find Romney, Corriedale, Merino, and Suffolk, which her fellow students thought were towns.  She recognized immediately they were sheep breeds and happily scampered off to the find the sheep.  That’s my girl…

So by now I’m thinking my wonderful class in the bay area of northern California has just about given up getting any kind of mention in my blog, actually I’m saving the best for last.

I did have an amazing time in California, two of the best and most enthusiastic classes I’ve ever had, and I’m grateful for everyone who made it happen.  My nine students in my jacket class had taken a class with Sharon Alderman last spring, Sharon taught them fabric design and structure and had them sample the rest of the spring and into the summer and then hand weave yardage so they would be ready for my class.  Some of the yardage was still on the looms, but commercial fabric works just fine for this exercise and I encouraged them to bring whatever they could, just to be able to make a jacket and learn what I needed to teach them.  What a great group of women.

The setting for this workshop was one of the best I’ve ever worked in.  Located at Mercy Center in Burlingame, in the Bay Area of San Francisco, about 10 minutes from the airport, Mercy Center is a retreat house and convent, and a pleasure to work in.  I stayed in a quiet room on the fourth floor, ate the food in the cafeteria which was surprisingly good, and enjoyed the spacious meeting room we had for the workshop.  My only regret was not having the time to go out and walk the labyrinth.  I hear it is an exceptional one.  One of the Sisters, Gloria, who took the workshop and is a member of the weaving guild,  wove a series of hangings for one of the corridors in the Mother House. We were able to take a peak the last afternoon of the class.  It was beautiful the way it totally integrated with the space.

And so, minus some handwork and the occasional sleeve, here are my wonderful women with their new jackets, they worked really hard and learned so much and all left smiling and have promised me photos of the completed jackets when available.

Some of the handwoven jackets…

And the commercial equivalents (Though Kathleen hand dyed her wool fabric)…

Stay tuned…