Daryl's Blog

Just got back from attempting to dig out the cars and the walks.  See, snow, even a couple of feet to remove, isn’t all that horrible, with a snow blower and big brushes/brooms.  But this mess, which is about 3-4″ of solid frozen slush (I’ll never look at a 7-11 Slurpee the same way again…).  It is heavy and you have to chip it away in sections off the walk ways and try not to damage the concrete.  No amount of rock salt, of which I’ve used 20 pounds in the last few days, will remove it.  And the water can’t go anywhere, so it just refreezes.  I chipped away at the walks and the cars, and fortunately the air temps are now above freezing so everything chipped in chunks, and I got the walk cleared.  I don’t know what to do about the driveway, so I’m crossing my fingers my husband gets in before dark, haven’t heard he has been delayed coming in from Frankfurt.  And we have no heat again.  So I’ll want him to look at the boiler before I call the plumber again.

Meanwhile…

I took to heart the comments, both on the blog and emailed, about the belt on the plaid dress.  I think it looks under styled and naked without something, and guess what?  I have two very narrow strips of the plaid left, enough to squeak out a belt I think, and a couple of leather 1″ buckles that could work making a very discreet belt.  That might be the way to go, that’s what worked on the paprika silk version.

I had planned to try to go out to a gathering of knitters last night, but my son, who had been out in his truck, vehemently warned me to stay off the roads, so I took my project I had packed up, and curled up with the inkle loom and began to sample trims for the next project.

I had so much fun!  Just doing a trim sampler was a blast.  And the more I worked the more ideas I got.  I am happiest with the last one I did, and I still really like the first one I did with the rattail circles.  I think I’m going to switch out the silver and gold threads, and I found a heavier silver yarn, so it will make more of a statement.  And I found a 5/2 perle cotton in white which will match the very white ground of the jacket fabric.  The white rayon I used was just a little off of real white, so it looked a bit yellow next to the fabric.

I think I’ll try to get another scarf woven while I wait for my husband.  The loom is nearer the doorway and the heat from the wood stove rising up the stairs to the second floor.  Lots to keep me busy in the next couple of weeks…

Stay tuned…

Edit:  Reworked the Gold vs. Silver and really like how it is looking.  Going for the rings I think…

OK, enough with this winter wonderland crap.  We are so done with the ice and snow…  If it is too much to ask, the cold isn’t the problem, it is all the cancellations that happen because you can’t keep your wet icy tears to yourself.  If you need a shoulder to cry on, could you hit up Florida or something?  They probably need the rain… (Ok, that was mean, they get nailed with hurricanes in the summer, and I hear Dallas just closed its airport for an ice storm and I can’t even begin to wrap my head around what’s happening in Australia)…

There, I feel better.

I’m really really lucky in a way.  First, I don’t have to get up and go to work no matter what the weather.  I work 20 feet from the bedroom. My class at the community college was cancelled yet again.  Since I control the curriculum, I can easily adjust, condense, and rework the curriculum so we get it all in in a shorter amount of classes.  And the guild meeting tomorrow night, where I was to present my newest seminar on warping from Front to Back, well that’s been moved to March.  No one died, I can wait another month.  The fact that my daughter’s midterm exams keep getting pushed off, well that just gives her more time to study.  And because my son has a four wheel drive truck and lives 10 minutes from Target, allows him to get to work when no one else can, earning him many kudos for his attendance.  I am crossing my fingers my husband Kevin will make it home tomorrow from Saudi, of course there are worse places to get stuck than Frankfurt Germany.

So far the gutters with 200 pounds of ice p.s.i. are holding, we went out all the second story windows in the house yesterday afternoon with a long stick, knocking all the three foot icicles off the gutters to help reduce the weight.  If there is ceiling damage from all the ice dams up on the roof, I’m sure we won’t be the only ones, and I’ve got my guy Larry.  That’s why you have homeowners insurance.

So what did I do with my gray miserable icy day?  🙂

First, let me start with yesterday.  I worked all week/weekend on my proposals for Convergence Long Beach 2012.  They take a huge amount of effort, especially since they encourage you to come up with new fresh ideas for workshops and seminars.  Sandy Bowles, executive director of HGA asked me to really work hard to come up with some new stuff after the Albuquerque Convergence in July.  I’ve been tossing around ideas since then.  It is hard to invent something untested, but I played around with ideas and think what I submitted can work well.  If I’m not accepted to teach there in 2012, I’ll have a bunch of new stuff to offer on my website.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, yesterday I mailed the whole packet including CD’s of my images off to Florida to the committee.  A job well done.  And last night, I finished off the wool plaid dress.  It is really cute.  OK, the belt is the wrong brown, but that’s easily fixed if I can ever get out and go shopping.

Today, while waiting for all the cancellations to come in, I wove another scarf,  and planned a couple more projects.  This is the part I like best.  And I have the greatest stash to work from.

Project 1…

This is a cotton/rayon and metallic fabric, I’ve been sitting on for a long time.  I recently purchased a couple of Vogue patterns when they were having their $4.99 sale and I loved the detailing of this suit.  I think there is enough fabric to make the whole suit, though I’m not sure I will wear both pieces together.  Might be a bit much.  However, I really like both pieces and I think I’ll enjoy the challenge of the details.  Speaking of details…

Sidebar…  It has been on my list to make a jacket or something that contains inkle woven trim, something more dressmaker like, rather than handwoven like.  I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well here, but I teach inkle weaving, “Weave your own trim” to non weavers at places like the American Sewing Guild conferences and I’d like to have a suit or something from commercial fabric that involves inkle woven trim instead of trimming a handwoven garment.  Make sense?  Anyway, this jacket is perfect.  I have plenty of metallics, white cotton, black ribbon yarn, and black rattail.  So I’m psyched to design a “trim” that would work with this jacket, I’d need 3.25 yards of 1/2″ trim, so that’s pretty easy to knock out on an inkle loom.

Project 2…

I’ve been sitting on this silk denim for a long time.  It is really beautiful, and I saw this Vogue jacket and liked the lines.  It looks a little short waisted so I’ll probably lengthen it, and I think I have plenty of fabric to work with.  I scrounged through my zipper box and found some great zippers for the front details, and I scrounged in my stash in the sky, the frigid attic, scrounging quickly since I was still in my pajamas (don’t ask).  I found a box with scraps of shearling, very organic, and I think I can create a removable collar and cuffs with the shearling, so the jacket can be cleaned.

So that’s what I did with my icy Tuesday where everything on the calendar for the next day or two has been cancelled.  It will be interesting to hear what Puxatawney Phil does tomorrow on groundhog day, in the middle of an ice storm there is little chance he will see his shadow and dive back underground.  Chances are he won’t bother to surface in the first place.  So maybe we won’t have six more weeks of winter?

Stay tuned…

The serenity achieved from the yoga/meditation weekend continued into the week.  It continued into Tuesday when I woke to an inch of snow, thinking that my class at the college would be cancelled yet again.  It continued as I unloaded the dishwasher, putting away the plastic containers.  It continued when a shelf support pin gave way on an upper cabinet shelf and seldom used glassware came sliding down in slow motion all over my head into the kitchen sink.  It continued as I got out the vacuum cleaner, which was close by since I had just completely cleaned the kitchen Monday night.  It continued as I cleaned up the glass and the broken pottery in the sink and the broken drain rim.  It continued as I called Larry the contractor guy to fix my sink.

It continued through dragging 75 pounds of stuff across campus to my first class at the community college, (which I will say was a blast!).  It continued Wednesday as the serious snow began, and into Thursday when we got a mere foot of snow, we were lucky, NYC got 19 inches.  It continued as the water dripped from the 18″ icicles hanging from the roof, creating piles of ice four inches thick.  It continued as I drove over treacherous roads to pick up my basket of organic produce (definitely worth it, gorgeous fresh organic goodies…) It continued as we tried to clear away the snow, the piles are getting so high there is no place to put it.

It continued as I plodded along all week writing proposals for Convergence 2012, not knowing where it was going to be, just that it was in the US and probably I couldn’t drive there.  As I wrote the last proposal, the note came into my inbox that the 2012 location would be Long Beach, California.  Great location, should be a lot of fun.  Nothing beats Southern California for a fresh approach to fiber!

It continued as I worked all week, in between writing proposals for Convergence, on the edits for my article for Handwoven.  It continued as I added an additional page of technical information, and answered all of Madelyn’s questions.  (Madelyn is the editor for Handwoven Magazine).

It continued as I tried to help my 18 year old daughter study for her AP English midterm exam, spending hours reading passages and answering multiple choice questions regarding contextual analysis of said passages, and remembering why I went to art school instead of becoming an English major…

And it continued into today, reluctant as I was about going into NYC in all that muck and slush, I rallied myself, in my Zen state, and hopped a bus into Manhattan, to meet up with my weaving buddy Jody from Rhode Island, and her two felting friends from Prince Edward Island.  What an amazing day!

We started out at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute on Park Ave @ 68th street.  I wanted to see the Cristobal Balenciaga retrospective, mentioned it to Jody, and everyone decided it would be a great way to start the day.  I highly recommend if you can get yourself into the city, to catch this exhibit before it leaves February 19th.  What I loved most about it, besides the spectacular clothing, was the way Hamish Bowles curated the exhibit linking Balenciaga’s influences from his native Spain, religious garb, bullfighters, native dress, the flamenco dancer, art work from the Spanish masters to the actual pieces.  It was a fabulously installed exhibit.

We headed over to Madison Ave to see Julie Artisans’ Gallery, and as we crossed Park Ave. we came upon these amazing stainless steel and fiberglass sculptures, “planted” down the median, called “The Roses” by Will Ryman.  They were especially fun full of snow and dripping icicles.

Julie Artisans’ Gallery of Wearable Art

is always a must see stop when I’m uptown in the 60’s.  There is always something new and fresh.  And the staff there is so friendly and generous of spirit.  The have the greatest display of vintage Bakelite bracelets and oddities I’ve ever seen.  This photo is from her website, currently there are some fantastic nuno felted coats in the window.  Did I take a photo?  No…

Julie gave us some wonderful recommendations for places to eat, so we continued back over to Lexington, and stopped at Le Pain Quotidien. I never got past the blackboard specials, the arugula salad with artichokes and Edamame and crisp prosciutto.  There was a Masala Chai Latte, and the bread pudding with blood orange marmalade was a to die for.

We all enjoyed lunch, and then headed downtown a couple more blocks to Tender Buttons.  I am amazed at how long I’ve lived just over the river from NYC and I never managed to find this place.

Walls of buttons.  The most amazing experience.  Some of the coolest vintage sets.  I figured I’d be completely overwhelmed, but almost immediately I zeroed in on these couple of buttons, and the more I looked, the more I came back to them.  I decided that I had to bring them home with me.  Yes they were pricey at least by my standards, but they were so gorgeous.  They are abalone shell, but the texture and color of the surface was exquisite.  This is what $100. worth of buttons looks like. Totally worth it.  I carried my treasure in the tiny little bag, and hugged my friends and headed down to the Lexington Subway stop to pick up the train that would carry me to Grand Central Station where I would pick up the shuttle that would take me to Times Square where I would walk along the tunnel under Manhattan to Port Authority where I would pick up the bus to the NJ Transit Center and gather my car for the short trip home.  I caught every connection perfectly, and knit the ribbing on a new pair of socks on the bus ride home.  I’m exhausted but still in my very Zen state.  And I found online yoga classes, for a modest monthly fee, fantastic classes, Yogaglo.com, so tomorrow morning I’ll do my second class this week, and hope my Zen state lasts for another week…

Stay tuned…

(edit…  I resorted to alcohol when I just discovered that the heating system in the house is down.  It is too late to call anybody, so I’m trying to figure out how to dig through the piles of snow in the dark to the reserve woodpiles in the back of the property to fire up the woodstove…)

Apparently I hadn’t told too many people I was going away for the weekend, my husband claims I didn’t tell him, my friend/neighbor forgot.  No matter, I slipped away unnoticed and went off on a Women’s Self-Care Yoga retreat on the other side of my county.

The retreat weekend, Friday night until Sunday afternoon took place at a retreat center within a convent, on spectacular acreage in the most gorgeous section of Morris County, of course I took no pictures, had no electronics, and happily disappeared for a brief couple of days from any responsibilities I had.

If I had done nothing but sit in my minimally furnished room and breathed, I would have been happy.  Bored eventually, but happy.  It was restful for the soul and very centering.  There was lots of down time, ( I actually sat in a comfy chair and knit) and yoga and meditation sessions, including one with “singing bowls”, massage, and of course meals, some silent and some chatty.  We were given a “word” when we arrived Friday night, that was to be our “word” through the weekend, each participant selected their word from a basket and kept it secret until Sunday afternoon.  My word was Serenity.  Big eye roll, are we surprised?

And so my weekend quest for serenity started Friday night, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the word, and what it meant and how fleeting it can be for me at times with my busy life.  Though I will say that because I spend more time in my studio than I do anywhere else in my life, and my studio is a constant source of creativity and pleasure, and personal challenges which I adore, the serenity or lack of it in my life comes when my work and my life get out of balance with each other.  Or so I thought…

We had to answer a couple of questions at the start of the retreat, keeping in mind our “word”.  Questions like “The soul is calling me to …” and “I am the one who…”  We did a magazine clipping collage Saturday afternoon to explore these questions and our “word”.

So here is what I learned in a nutshell…

The soul is calling me to be balanced.

In balance is serenity.

I am the one who controls the balance in my life.

I thought that to achieve serenity there must be balance.

I was wrong…

True balance in all things (as it was pointed out to me) is largely unattainable.

The quest is to achieve serenity even when life is out of balance.

Life is unbalanced, that is a gift and a challenge and that’s OK.  Creative people turn that unbalance into something visual and expressive.

The goal is to find my way back to my center, to find my own serenity within the unbalance that is life.

All pretty cerebral stuff.  I came home Sunday afternoon quite full of serenity and ready to greet the world.

I moderated a serious family squabble between my kids.

I cleaned up all the recycling that the wind had blown all over the driveway and snow covered lawn.

I cleaned up the dangling Christmas lights that the wind blew down. (Note to husband in Saudi Arabia.  It is time to come home.  The Christmas lights need to be taken down.)

I returned a couple of phone calls to friends who were having issues in their lives and didn’t know I was away for the weekend.

I went to the grocery store to buy food as there was nothing to eat.

I went to my studio to check my email.

I looked at the email and started to get an anxiety attack.

I shut off my computer and went for the Mojito Mix.

It was a great weekend.

As it turned out, I didn’t start my Fibers Class at the Community College last night.  We had an ice storm.  A good old fashioned crummy awful, but spectacularly gorgeous ice storm.  More common than two foot snow storms in New Jersey, this is the kind of storm that makes everything look like it is frozen, like an ice palace, but driving in it is treacherous and scary.  The temperature hovers at freezing, so as it rains, the rain freezes onto every surface it touches creating a glaze that is light reflective, beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

So they cancelled school.  Sort of a snow day if you will.  I always loved snow days, everything gets cancelled or postponed, and you get a free day.  A whole day to do what makes you happy as long as you don’t have to go outside.  Which I didn’t.  I felt for my kids who had to clear the driveway and the cars and the walk ways.  It wasn’t the kind of snow that you could blow away with the snow blower.  It was about four inches of heavy icy slush and there was nothing to be done but shovel it.  They did the neighbor across the street’s driveway and another friend across town as well.  They were very sore when they woke up this morning.

So I have to wait another week to be Professor Daryl, and I’m glad I didn’t make myself nuts over-preparing.  And how did I use my free day?  First, I slept in.  There is no greater joy in life than just snuggling warm under the covers and knowing there is a whole day ahead and nothing that was on the calendar will actually happen.  🙂

The bleakness of the gray cold freezing rain was pretty depressing every time I looked outside.  The trees were sparkling with ice, but to get the best effect, you need the sunlight refracting off the surfaces.  Sadly it was just gray.  So the only possible thing I could do on this very gray cold free day was…

Yep, I decided that to counteract the gray day, I would make another scarf warp from the brightest of the colors that I had dyed over the past two months.  I used an old palette from one I designed for Handwoven Magazine for inspiration, Night at the Arcade, and I pulled the skeins from the overflowing shelves and got my daughter, who was also off from school with a free day, no trombone lesson, nothing on her calendar, I got her to turn all the skeins into balls.  🙂

As she worked through the skeins, I started winding the warp.  Previously I’ve painstakingly wound cards that had a thread by thread lay-out over a to scale draft.  I decided to see if I could just actually wing this one, it was taking a big risk, but I wanted to see if I could just wind the colors and see what happened.  I had the first couple of inches on the beam when my daughter wandered over and commented that I was winding two inches when I should have only been winding an inch based on the draft.  Oops…

I looked at the draft again, and reworked the colors in the weaving software I was using for a reference, and decided to just carry on.  This was to be sort of not planned, so what the heck…

Each section I wound was more spectacular than the last, and as I added the sections in, the gray rain outside disappeared and the room was filled with color and light.  I finished winding the warp this morning, and got the loom threaded up this afternoon.  I had to see how it would all look, so I wove a couple of inches and here’s what I’ve got.

It looks like there will be more snow showers on Friday and the chance of snow next Tuesday.  Well I’ll be ready to chase away the gray with this very colorful scarf run, and I’m hoping by spring I’ll be able to start my class at the college.  Stay tuned…