Daryl's Blog

Odd title I know, but usually when you drag out the “first” of anything you’ve done, it is something from the archives from when you were say, a teenager?

I’ve mentioned it before in this blog, I first learned to weave in 1974, back when bog jackets were relatively new, and the world was full of rug yarn and macramé.  I’ve never woven a dishtowel.  I know, there are no words.  Somehow weaving a product, meaning something that is finished when it comes off the loom, never really appealed to me.  I weave yardage.  I am a sewer sewist.  I like fabric.  End of story.

Except my guild, Jockey Hollow Weavers is having a dishtowel exchange.  To exchange or not to exchange, that was the question last September when I hesitantly scrawled my signature across the sign up sheet.  Anyway, it is nearly June.  The towels are due.  I won’t even make it to the last meeting, I’ll be somewhere in Oregon teaching at ANWG weaving conference.  So my lovely Brianna will have to take my towels and exchange them for me.

The assignment was simple enough, weave towels using complementary colors.  I pondered this all through the winter.  I pondered it while I sat in my jammies in front of the fireplace.  I pondered my jammies.  I liked the belt on the jammies.  I studied the belt more carefully.  I liked the structure.

I went to my computer and went right to the Webs link, and looked at what colors they had.  What makes a good dishtowel?  Cotlin?  That would be linen and cotton for those not in the know.  The colors were pretty.  I pulled out my color wheel.  Red Violet and Yellow Green.  Opposite on the color wheel.  I really liked the colors of the belt but they didn’t have that particular shade of blue in Cotlin.  So I ordered the yarn after some basic calculations.

Meanwhile, I played around with twill variations with a supplemental warp.  I used weaving software (Fiberworks PCW) to create a draft.

I took my four cones of red violet yarn

And wound a warp

And sleyed the reed

And threaded the loom

And beamed the warp

And started to weave.

They weave like a dream, and I’m already bored.  I wonder if I can make a summer top out of the one I have left after I exchange my towels?  🙂

I’m just surfacing from a long couple of weeks, where normal daily activities came to a screeching halt, and there was barely time to eat and shower, forget about posting a blog.  But the worst is behind me, at least for the next couple of weeks, and I can catch my breath and catch up on some projects in the studio.

I left Virginia the beginning of May, after a very successful workshop, it seems like months ago, not merely a short week.  I drove up through West Virginia, a gorgeous drive as you can imagine, and made it to my sister’s home in northern Maryland.  We drove last Monday up to Longwood Gardens in south western Philadelphia, to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday.  You go mom!

If there is anyplace that can inspire it is Longwood Gardens.  Every time I’ve gone, I’ve come home with stacks of gorgeous images and lots of inspiration and a huge desire to lay down in a bed of flowers and melt into the earth.

My sisters and my mom gathered for a family photo, and yes dear readers, for those paying attention, that’s me in the suit I finished a couple months ago, with the handwoven trim.

Enjoy the photos of the gardens, if you ever get to the Philadelphia area, it is a wonderful place to visit year round.

After teaching the last class in the series at the Newark Museum on Tuesday, and the last fibers class at the county college Tuesday evening, I collapsed in bed from sheer exhaustion, and then in the morning drove to the airport to pick up Robyn Spady, whom I would be housing for the next few days while she taught a two day workshop on Double Sided Cloth for our weaving guild.

I took not a single photo, but suffice it to say, the workshop was wonderful, and it was the first time my daughter attended a weaving workshop, I pulled her out of school for the two days, and she blossomed.  She raced through the round robin style workshop like a pro, understanding the structures within minutes of looking at the drafts.  She invented some interesting color effects, and was generally a great help in getting the workshop set up and broken down.  I am so going to miss her next fall when she heads off to college.

I dropped Robyn off at the airport Saturday morning, and haven’t stopped until this morning.  Between theater tickets, trombone recitals, dinners, and working in the yard because the weather here is just too glorious not to, I’m pooped.  I’m trying to make sense of my studio, put everything back in its place, step over the new computer system my husband is building for me since this one is dying.  It will of course have Windows 7, and I’m sure there will be great gnashing of teeth while I adjust to it all!

Yesterday was Mother’s Day.  It was a glorious day, and my entire family, kids and husband were home in the same state in the same country at the same time.  🙂

My son cooked not one, but two meals for us on the new grill.  The old one was slowly dying, I’d find various parts rusted off and lying on the ground when I would walk out on the decks.  So we ate outside last night, and enjoyed grilled salmon and steamed mussels.  Life is good…

No, this post isn’t about the wedding of the century, though I did enjoy looking at Kate’s dress from the late Alexander McQueen.  It is about my own wedding, which occurred 33 years ago today.  I’m not home, so I don’t have my files, and can’t post a photo from that wedding, but I want to share what my wonderful husband of 33 years did for me today.

If you have been following this blog, you know that he is in Saudi Arabia, as in the other side of the world, and I’m nestled down her in the Shenandoah’s between Virginia and the West Virginia border in a quaint little town called Monterey.  I’m teaching a four day garment construction class for a small group in an idyllic setting, and today is my wedding anniversary.

Every year since we were married, my husband has sent me flowers for our anniversary.  It started with one rose for each year of marriage.  When we hit 30 years, I encouraged him to reconsider the roses, they were getting frightfully expensive and unwieldy, and roses die so quickly. So we decided that spring flowers with a couple of roses added would be completely adequate and much more reasonable but as I made the trek down here to Virginia on Wednesday, I kept thinking how sad it was that this would be the first anniversary where I wouldn’t get flowers.  I am in a pretty isolated location, and he is on the other side of the world.

So imagine my surprise when a young girl climbed the steps to the second floor private studio where I am teaching and asked if there was a Daryl Lancaster here, holding an exquisite vase of gorgeous spring flowers.  I cried of course, what else could I do?

He found me and I’m all mushy, and we all admired the flowers, and then he managed to call, and I remembered all over again how much I love this guy and what a great partner in life he has been.  Kevin, this is for you.

And I have to include a photo of the view from my window where I’m staying at the Chalet at the Meadows.  I woke up yesterday morning, opened my eyes, and gazed over the meadow, the sky beginning to break up from the violent storms of the night before.

Sheep.

Everywhere.

Life is good…

One of the great perks of being an artist is the ability to take the smallest thread and run with it.  And sometimes running with that small thread is more dangerous than running with scissors.  Ask my poor husband and kids who live with me.  I’m forever presenting why they shouldn’t do something and supporting that argument with all kinds of worst case scenarios.  Even health issues have a way of becoming life altering diseases if I let my imagination run amok.  That imagination makes me really good at what I do and also completely crazy at times.

Every year, I see my oncologist for a follow up check up for my breast cancer incident that occurred nine years ago.  It is always met with dreaded anticipation and there is huge relief  when I leave the office and then even huge-er (I know that isn’t a word…) relief when I get the all clear on blood work.  That visit usually occurs in the late fall.

In the spring I go for my annual mammogram.  Though I found my cancer lump myself, I’m still a firm believer of mammograms, they give a baseline, and screen for minor changes that you can’t feel, and since the key to cure is early detection, I’m all for it.  And I am religious about going.

So this morning, I threw breakfast in the pan, whipped up a smoothie for my daughter, and ran out of the house to the breast center, having scheduled the first appointment of the day.  I’ve been thinking about this visit all week, running all kinds of scenarios through my head.  I have this horrific low back ache, I don’t usually have aches in my low back, but my lovely imagination had taken me from back strain (more than likely from hauling 150 pounds of luggage over two countries in the last two weeks) to metastatic breast cancer gone into my spine. I dutifully filled out the paperwork,  yes I’ve had cancer, I’ll never forget the date of diagnosis 2/22/2002.  Yes I’ve had chemotherapy and a mastectomy.  No, I never took hormone replacement therapy, yes, I’ve had two live births, the first in my mid 30’s.  No, no history of breast cancer in my family.  It seems sort of ironic that I don’t get a discount on my mammogram since there is only one breast to screen.

Yes the machine was cold, and yes it is bizarre how they get every inch of what little skin you have smushed under those plates, but the new digital images are clear and hopefully more accurate than traditional films, and can be quickly read by the attending physician.

By 7:30am, I was on my way home, with my cherished slip of paper in my hand, the sign off from the physician that all is well.  The exhale was audible.  My back is still a mess, and I am leaving tomorrow for an 8 hour drive to Virginia into the Shenandoah mountains (I don’t do well with long drives) to teach a garment construction four day retreat in a private studio, hauling 175 pounds of suitcases, up to a second floor when I get there.  But back strain I can deal with.  For now I’ll let my overactive imagination have a bit of a rest…

Today is a US Holiday, at least that’s what my Google Calendar says.  It is also Good Friday, which is also a US Holiday, but really it is a holy day for Christians who mourn the death of the whole foundation of their religion.  I chose to focus on the first US Holiday.  It is one that everyone can participate in, no matter what religion, culture, age, or economic background.  It is Earth Day.

Yesterday I spent the day cleaning my house.  With all my traveling, it was pretty out of control.  The kids were less than on top of things while I was gone, which is unusual, and I let them know that I expect at least an effort while I’m on the road.  I spent an exhausting morning cleaning my downstairs and making it presentable for the company I’m having in two weeks, since I won’t be home to clean then…  I know, futile effort…

Last night, I did attend a Maundy Thursday service in a Presbyterian Church on the Green in Morristown last night.  It was pretty incredible.  Though not a member of the church,  I’ve been playing with the Baroque Recorder Consort that is part of the music program in this church for a few years now.  The music director is a gifted musician, and I’m fortunate to be able to play with the consort on special church occasions.  Maundy Thursday, the feast of the Last Supper, in this Church anyway, was a pretty incredible mix of choir, soloists, recorders, and very intense almost scary organ music.  They have in this vaulted cathedral like sanctuary one of those huge pipe organs, with pipes that reach all the way to the top of the vault.  Watching the music director play is watching brilliance, and your veins run cold from the sheer power of the sound.  And I got to play with the recorder consort during the communion service, it is my one passion in life that has nothing to do with fiber.  I’m not very good, and that’s OK.  They are patient, and it feels good to play with a group where there are no stars, only the perfect blending of all “voices”.

But what I really want to talk about is the fact that I haven’t been in the studio or near fiber for two whole days.  I’m sort of on withdrawal.  I did occasionally check email, but otherwise, I put on my cruddiest clothes, put on a baseball cap (A Rangeman Cap from my friend Robyn Spady for my birthday last year.  It is the only one I own, and you will understand if you read Janet Evanovich novels) and headed outdoors on this very gray, dreary cold, overcast Earth Day.

My half acre of beautiful gardens, ponds, perennials, flowering trees, and garden bric-a-brac was looking pretty worn out from the harsh winter, there were probably enough sticks in the yard and beds for a season’s worth of kindling for the chiminea.  There were lots of damaged plants from the nasty storms, lots of dead debris that we never got around to cleaning up last season before winter set in, lots of damaged and broken lawn decorations and furniture.  And garbage.  The recycling bins that are put out weekly have a habit of going out on days of severe weather and lots of trash gets blown under bushes and other lawn features.  And severe weather we have had.  More due in tomorrow.  The whole weekend is suppose to be a rainy mess.  I talked to someone in the grocery store today who commented that as soon as one of the frequently flooded roads in town opened, she drove up and down it half a dozen times because she is pretty sure it will flooded again by the end of the weekend.

Anyway, I took advantage of the fact that it was Good Friday and my kids were both off from school/work, and so was my neighbor’s son.  We all worked for a number of hours, and made a major dent in the condition of the property, so instead of seeing trash and broken debris, there are now signs of life.  The things blooming in the yard at the moment should have bloomed three weeks ago, but hey, at least they bloomed…

Happy Earth Day…