Storm central here.  I arrived home from California just in time to have missed the earthquake that rattled the northeast corridor but not the hurricane that is currently barreling up the coast.

And this time around, my wonderful husband is home from Saudi Arabia to help man the guns…

He was around when the hose came off the pool and it emptied half way down.

He was around when the electrical fire started in the basement.  He was actually standing there.  We both were…  Thank you God…

He was around to take my son in for surgery Thursday morning after I got in at 2am from the airport.  Nothing major, a scheduled nose fix, from multiple breaks, including one last weekend.  Boys…

He was around to pick him up after surgery and fill all his prescriptions.

He was around to help take my daughter for all her off to college shopping needs.

And now, he is around to clear the exterior of our house for anything that could become a projectile in 70 mph sustained winds, and to prepare the property for the onslaught of Irene.  This is a scary storm, no precedent, since the ground and streams are already swollen from record rainfall this month.  The 6-12″ of water has no place to go.  I’m expecting a flooded basement, by Lincoln Park standards that is so a nothing…  About 60% of my town is in the flood zone.  It isn’t a question of “if” it is a question of “how bad”…

We’ve brought everything that isn’t nailed down into the garage, and all the indoor trees that were summering on the deck have been brought back into the house, hence the 10 foot “ficus” in the kitchen, it is the only room with a high enough ceiling.  And in preparation for an extended power outage I’m cooking freezer cuisine.  This involves some butter and wine in a pan, and three bags of anything in the freezer that won’t survive a power outage.  Serve over pasta or rice and instant dinner.  Remind me why there are six bags of frozen corn and no other vegetable?

We are hoping to come out of this with minimal damage, and any power outages shortlived.  One can only hope.  At least my whole family is here. We are scheduled to take my daughter to school on Tuesday, but UMass Amherst is in line for the eye of the storm to pass by on Monday, so at this point, we are getting emails that say, “Don’t come until we tell you to…”

For all of my loyal readers in the northeast corridor, stay safe.  May this all be a media hyped event and nothing else.  I can wish, can’t I…

Stay tuned…

As promised, this post has photos!

My mini get-away was just what I needed…

Meals on the porch, breezy temps in the 70’s, great friendship, stimulating conversations, and some wonderful Baroque music, my friend is a vocalist and I play Baroque recorder.

Before I get too far into my fabulous felt adventures with Amy, I wanted to back up to the ASG conference, still no pictures to share, but I have a couple of post notes on one of the workshops I actually attended.  I actually attended three workshop/seminars at the conference in LA this weekend, two of them were lectures in using Photoshop Elements for fabric design and for organizing your sewing patterns.  Both were really excellent and Deb and Kris the Pixeladies were hilarious, a regular dog and pony show.  Imaging laughing through an entire presentation on using Photoshop.  And I’m really proud to say I learned a lot, even though I can use Photoshop in my sleep.  Go figure.  They offer online classes in the subjects and I highly recommend!

The other workshop I took was with June Colburn who gave a one day workshop in a new product called deColourant.  It is a non-toxic discharge paste activated by heat.  We did all the stenciling and screening in class, and let the fabric samples dry for a few days.  I took advantage of Amy’s studio and iron and spent a large part of yesterday morning trying various methods of applying heat to get the deColourant to activate.  The iron worked the quickest but even that was painfully slow, I spent a good half hour on a couple of the samples, and also discovered that the deColourant doesn’t seem to remove screened ink.  It only seems to work on dyed fabric.  Anyway, it is a fun product and I can see all sorts of applications and I’m thrilled I got a chance to try working with this stuff.

The only casualty seemed to be the fact that my fabric disintegrated.  I’m not sure why, maybe I ironed it too much? Al of my black samples seem to dissolve under the stress of washing.  It is a mystery…  Or cheap fabric?

My fiber buddy Amy Morris is a surface designer turned weaver turned felter.  We all eventually focus on a medium that speaks to us, and often that changes in our careers as fiber enthusiasts.  Amy took to felting after a couple of workshops and hasn’t looked back.  At least she has a warp on her loom, which is more than you can say for me at the moment…

Amy makes vessels, something I have no experience in, and she graciously put me to work helping her produce a couple of additional larger pieces for an upcoming exhibition.  There is some grunt work involved and felting is pretty physical.  I was happy to help and hopefully learn something too.

We started with a large vessel and later tackled the behemoth.

I loved the whole process and watched Amy carefully as she molded and tweaked the felt once it stuck together.

Then we tackled the monster ball.  Amy’s delightful husband Bill acted as host, making meals, bringing us drinks, and keeping the camera close at hand.

Problem was, the wool covered ball wouldn’t fit in her industrial sink.  I suggested the gorgeous glass enclosed shower in the guest bathroom.  It had a pebbled floor that would create friction.  So we donned our bathing suits and climbed in the shower, with pots of boiling water and some soap and some wicked rubber gloves.

Once we had the felt to where Amy thought it was adhering well, we could remove the stocking and deflate the ball.

OK, we got a little carried away!

Amy pulled and tweaked the piece and left it to dry upside down while we ate a delicious dinner of whole wheat pasta and the freshest heirloom tomatoes you have ever tasted.  Of course there was wine and fine Canadian Chocolates, each one Bill carefully cut into three portions so we could sample the whole box.  OK, we got a little carried away…

In the morning the vessel was turned right side up and carefully manipulated some more.  This is a pretty substantial vessel, the largest piece of felt I’ve every worked on.  It was a great experience and I learned a lot and I wonder how my husband would feel about a pebbled shower floor?

Off to the San Diego Zoo for dinner…

I hear I’m missing all the fun on the East Coast, the earthquake, the hurricane barreling up the coast line…

It is perfectly lovely here in Southern California…  I wonder how my husband would feel if I stayed just a little bit longer…

I’m such a bad blogger…

I just finished a fabulous week in LA at the Westin Bonaventure, at the American Sewing Guild conference and took no pictures.

None.

I took a couple of fantastic workshops/seminars.

No pictures.

I gave a one day workshop and three lectures and have no pictures.

I participated in a fantastic fashion show, modeling two of my latest pieces and got to model one of the finale pieces by Diane Ricks, no pictures…

I was in downtown LA, gorgeous weather, great restaurants, no pictures.

I was in the vendor hall numerous times surrounded by bolts and bolts of fabrics, trims, etc.  No pictures.  And no purchases. (Except for the yard of organza for a new press cloth)

And I have no idea why I never felt like taking out the camera or my wallet.

Actually, I think I can probably figure it out.  This is my fifth or sixth conference this year.  Substitute fabric for yarn, they are all pretty much the same thing.  Personalities and locations may be difference, but it becomes a routine that I just float through, doing my job, and making sure students leave happy and wanting more.  Sort of like a well oiled machine.

I’ve been through so many fashion shows, and so many vendor halls, they all blur together.  I remember feeling this way after selling my work for 10 years in craft fairs, same story different town.  The big difference between then and now, is after 10 years, I couldn’t tolerate the life style of selling my work on the road anymore.  It was grueling and emotionally draining and financially unrewarding and I needed to change what I was doing completely.

Fast forward a number of years and I started teaching nationally at conferences and in all honesty, other than a few technical debacles, like the mess at poor Midwest in Hancock Michigan this year, I can’t remember ever thinking to myself in the last 20 years, I don’t want t0 do this anymore.  I love to teach, I love the energy of the students and the classroom, and I love watching their faces when they get it.  I never ever tire of that.

But I didn’t take any pictures. Mea culpa…

So if anyone reading this blog post has any photos of me or my classes, or the fashion show especially when I’m wearing Diane Ricks’ fabulous Bernina Fashion Show finale piece, would you be so kind to send them along?

Meanwhile…

I slipped away after the conference, and I’m hiding in the studio of one of my favorite fiber buddies.  I’m still on the west coast at an undisclosed location, surrounded by wool and looms and felt and sunshine, and no expectations but to chill for a couple days before heading home to take my daughter to college.

We had drinks on the patio when we arrived last night, and watched the sunset.

I curled up in bed and slept a long long time.  And when I awoke this morning, I looked at my bedding and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I grabbed my camera.  My fiber buddy Amy’s mother had made a couple of amazing throws, from small woven squares done on a simple 3 1/2 inch square weaving loom called a Weavette.  There were hundreds of them.  In cheap acrylic yarns and hand manipulated patterns.  I stared at these little squares for an hour.  Each was intricate and playful and very very detailed, with patterns that are usually created on multi shaft looms.  Amy told me her mother would sit in the evening and just make these little squares and toss them in a bag as she finished them, and as she had enough for a row, she’d sew them together and make some more.

In addition, Amy’s grandmother wove two other throws from plain weave Weavette squares, and then embroidered them with cross stitch designs once they were sewn together.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

So today, Amy and I are hard at work in her studio where I’m helping her felt some additional pieces for a show.  I couldn’t be happier.  More tomorrow, with pictures…

Another week of intermittent connectivity, or not enough of a signal to actually post anything other than the occasional text.  And so it goes…

I just returned from probably the best teaching experience I’ve ever had, I adore teaching at Sievers Fiber School and though I say it each time I finish there, this was undoubtedly the greatest class, both in personalities and in talent, and dogged perseverance and tenacity.  Out of thirteen students, ten were making “Daryl Jacket’s”, the silhouette I use for teaching garment construction, and not only were they all different, but many of the new students made at least two garments and were planning number three.  All in four days.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  And my repeat students are bringing amazing skills and projects to the classroom, and I couldn’t be more proud.

The setting, the facilities, and the spirit of the administration at Sievers is sort of like dying and going to fiber heaven.  I can’t imagine ever having a bad experience there.  If you want a fiber retreat, as one of the students said in the Sunday night get acquainted session, “It isn’t summer without Sievers.”

I’m including a few highlights, everyone brings their own agenda to the table, even the beginners, most of whom really aren’t beginners, but need the kind of intensive I’m offering to get them back on track sewing garments from their special fabrics, many are handweavers.  Cindy has taken this class so many times I think she could teach it, but each year she comes with the most amazing fabric, and this year’s didn’t disappoint.  She wove her friend’s alpaca, after having it commercially spun, not a person passed her table that didn’t reach out and pet her jacket.  Cheryl is a skilled sewer, and new weaver, she wanted to include her first handwoven sample strip, narrow as it is, in her jacket.

Nancy brought a fun madras pieced and quilted fabric, quite challenging to cut out, and she worked tirelessly to make it become a fantastic jacket.  Her table mate Peggy brought a basket of oddities, and was able to piece them together into quite the fun jacket, as did Karen who also brought a wonderful basket of mixed fabrics and fibers, and created two distinct garments, both variations on the “Daryl Jacket”.

Cindy E, an alpaca/sheep farmer, also created two garments, the second from a small piece of handwoven alpaca from her own animals.  There were lots of squeals of delight in this class, along with some very late nights, and the occasional adult libation.  Washington Island weather was exceptional, not too hot during the day, and beautifully cool and breezy at night.  Great sleeping weather.

I’m home now, arriving late on Friday.  I put together a presentation for another online class through Weavolution, which I gave this morning, while I was in the air enroute to Newark via Cleveland.  And I knit.  And I read.  And I took time to chill.

My entire family arrived home just before me, so this weekend I got to spend with my husband and kids for the first time in a long time.  He flew in from Saudi Arabia on Thursday, and faced much of the same re-entry crap I usually do.  The airconditioning system is permanently down, at least in our bedroom wing, and looks like it will have to be replaced…  Another $5,000…  Oh well, it’s only money…  Fortunately it is actually chilly outside, with a steady rain, which the parched ground and thirsty plants are just loving.

Kevin and I spent Saturday puttering around in the yard.  We weeded, making the smallest of dents in an overwhelming property of lush gardens and ponds.  We cleaned up, we picked up, and then we just sat together on the swing under the gazebo.  We quietly watched the busy birds, squirrels, butterflies, and chipmunks doing their thing, and enjoyed the oasis we’ve created in the 30+ years we’ve been in this house.  In the distance we heard some odd music, eventually realizing the sound was from an old fashioned Good Humor ice cream truck.  I ran out to the front yard to flag him down, and like little kids in the summertime, we got our popsicles and resumed our swing sitting.  I’m glad to have my buddy back, even if it is only for a few days, since I’m leaving again on Wednesday for Los Angeles and the American Sewing Guild conference.  And so it goes…

And today, in the rain, we took Brianna college dorm room shopping, the colors this year are plum and lime, fortunately her favorite colors, so we picked up all the little items that make a dorm fun and cozy, all of which I’m sure won’t get used since most of what she owns will end up in heaps on the floor.  Just saying…

And last night Brianna dug out her loom, to finish beaming her first project on the new puppy, her graduation gift.  She chose a cone of acid orange and a cone of yellow chenille I’ve had on shelves for awhile, and wove up a structure from the recent Robyn Spady workshop, a four shaft diversified plain weave on six shafts.  She was able to weave a couple of rows and is so pleased.  I realized I’m going to have to find her a bobbin winder, she needs the narrow shaft of the Swedish type, which is more than $100.  Oh well.  We spent that on dorm do-dahs…

Stay tuned…