Daryl's Blog

I’m like a kid in a candy shop.  I have some time now, to really dive into my studio, start accomplishing something, anything, and oddly, I’m struggling with where to turn first.  Since there are no immediately deadlines other than when I get a run of scarves finished I send them to the Santa Fe Gallery, and yes, I do have occasional local teaching venues like the Newark Museum class that runs Tuesday afternoons, but I have my days in the studio, and I just don’t know what to pick up first.

So I decided to start a little of everything…

First off, for the sewers who follow this blog… the silk dress I blogged about in the last post.  I’m underlining it with another silk, the outer fabric is so lightweight.  In addition I’m applying a nylon tricot bias edge finish to all the seams to keep them from unraveling, the bias tricot has no weight, and I can use it to ease in a princess seam bustline.  But stretching the tricot as I apply it I gently ease up the bust curve.  In addition, I always sort of knew this instinctively but not really why – a recent Thread’s article talked about minimizing puckering when sewing fine fabrics by using a straight stitch foot that was smooth on the bottom.  And having a straight stitch throat plate helps keep the fabric from being swallowed by the cavern from hell under the presser foot.

For the weavers out there, I’m really wanting to get some fabric on my big loom.  Everytime I walk into my studio I see a gorgeous colorful warp just lying in a heap draped over my big loom desperately calling me to warp it up.  So I sat down last night and came up with a repeat I thought would work well, using the warps I dyed last summer in a guild dye day.  I added a wheat color ground for one of the cotton lace warps, which was heavier than the other two, so I thought I’d try and do a modified supplemental with it, having it float over wefts, show it off a bit more.  The draft on the screen represents roughly one repeat, and so far, I managed to get one repeat on.  There are eleven of them.  And I found in my odd bits yarn bin, a skein of ribbon yarn that couldn’t have matched the dyed warps any better if I had dyed it myself.  Trouble is I wanted that ikat/ombre look, not the variegated look, so I carefully measured each length on the warping board, lining up the color repeats in the length so it would smoothly move from one colorway to the next over the length of cloth.

For the dyers out there…  OK, I’m a newbie dyer, sort of by the seat of my pants, and I’ve only dyed yarns using MX Fiber Reactive dyes and painted them on warps.  And the occasional skein.  That said, I’m undertaking this major job, killing 16 birds with one stone, if that is actually possible, and working through my cabinet of extensive jars of MX Dyes.  First off, I need small quantities of lots of different cellulose yarns, rayon, tencel, rayon novelties, etc. for the Santa Fe Gallery scarves.  Buying a pound or more of a yarn at $25. plus a pound, even with Webs discounts is unrealistic when I really only need 50 yards.  And there can be upwards of 4200 yards on that little one pound cone.  White yarn is cheap, and I have a lot of it.  I bought five pounds of tencel not too long ago, and it sits up there on the shelf waiting for some color.  Well color is my middle name.  I wrote the column on color for Handwoven Magazine for many years.  I love color and will happily dive in putting together all kinds of combinations but the truth is, I don’t have the range in my studio I need.  Hence the dye cabinet.  I mostly have the dyes, but I don’t actually know what I have.  Yeah I can read the label, but that doesn’t tell me actually what color Iceberg Green actually is.  Or Forget-Me-Not.  How about Old Rose?  My friend and guild mate Caroline has a wonderful ring of samples of all of her MX dyes for reference, and I covet one of those.  The only way to get one is to actually do the dyeing.

This is a hugely time consuming undertaking.  If I can knock off one color a day, that’s still a huge amount of work, not so much the dyeing, but winding the skeins and preparing them for dyeing, mixing the dye, painting them, letting them cure in a warm place (for lack of a better idea I created a warm place with a heating pad) and rinsing them out, letting them dry and then balling them up, carefully labeling them with what color it is, what yarn and how much is on the little ball.

Enter the bottom feeders.  I’ve mentioned my son and his friends before, all military guys that live in my basement from time to time.  I love them all, and everyone should have bottom feeders running around their house to help with all those little tasks that need to be done, especially in the absence of my husband who is mostly in Saudi Arabia, though he came skidding in Saturday, with just enough time to close up the pool, replace a cracked porcelain bathroom sink, and repair the heating system since cold weather is upon us…  No pressure…  Anyway, I arm twisted one of my bottom feeders, who is out of work at the moment, to help wind skeins and paint away.  Funny, Cody asked me why we painted the skeins instead of throwing them in a pot of dye.  I wasn’t really sure how to answer him, I’ve only ever warp painted, but truth is, the results we are getting are quite mixed.  I’ve never tried to warp paint with the same color.  It is coming out blotchy and inconsistent.  After three days of blotchiness, I actually went online to Pro-Chem’s website and read the directions for immersion dyeing.  It requires a lot of salt.  An entire container of Morton salt for every pound of fabric.  At 67 cents a carton, this isn’t such a hardship, but I had to actually go out to the grocery store.  Of course while I was there I stocked up on lots of other stuff, but I digress…

Anyway, the results today from our attempts at immersion dyeing were quite wonderful, we used Dusty Purple and got a gorgeous rich deep hue, the skeins are a bit tangled from all the stirring (I’m open to suggestions here…) but immersion dyeing is the way to go.  Course I can already see the comments from my readers, or the snickers, of course you all knew that, but I have to always find things out the hard way, or be told by a 21 year old out of work military guy in my basement that there had to be a better way…

Speaking of heating systems, did I mention ours was down?  So the last couple of cool nights, I did what any self respecting fiber junkie would do, I curled up in my newly reupholstered rocker with the 8 yards of inkle woven trim and sat by the wood stove and knit a washcloth.  So for the knitters, I picked up this little leaflet on making dishcloths, when I was at Siever’s in August. And I picked up some beautiful ‘Classic’ cotton from Tahki.  At the knitting group Thursday night, I know there were more than a few comments about why I’d knit dishcloths, actually, I love scrubbing dishes with handmade dishcloths (this from the weaver whose claim to fame is she has never wove a dishtowel, go figure), and I look at them as little studies in patterns.  This one is a trinity stitch, I did find one mistake in the mid section, but it is a dishcloth, and I’m now pretty confident in the stitch, so it has done it’s job and no one will be the wiser, except my few hundred readers out there, oops…

So, I managed to jump into a lot of projects, and I’m running around like a chicken without a head.  But I’m happy to be in my studio, happy to be playing with color, happy to be getting a warp on the loom and a garment on the dress form.  My knitting needles are clicking away, and I’m settling into an easy frenetic pace, seeing where each project takes me and where I end up.

Stay tuned…

What a great couple of days I’ve had, Monday wasn’t so hot, I have great children, but honestly, nearly 18 and nearly 21, they still need a real adult in the house to keep them moving in a forward direction.  So now I’m home and spent Monday whipping both of them back into shape. Lots of hugs… So now the whole house is moving in a forward direction.  I’m reclaiming each room, one at a time, and it feels good to be in control again.  As in control as anyone can ever be of anything in their lives, really, I get that…

Remember back a number of blog posts ago, when I mentioned that Jill Heppenheimer from Santa Fe Weaving Gallery contacted me about carrying my scarves after she saw one on exhibit at Convergence in Albuquerque?  We talked about me sending her a couple of scarves on a number of different colorways, and over the last month, in-between traveling, I put on a couple of warps and managed to get them woven off in spite of always heading off to the airport.  Before I left for Boulder, I shipped four scarves to her with a note, asking if this was what she had in mind.  And I also put in the note, that if she didn’t like them, she could send them back.  See, here is the thing…  I’m always insecure when it comes to my work.  I sold work for ten years, in craft fairs, galleries, any place that would buy.  I swore I’d never do it again, I don’t want to be weaving the same thing over and over, there is too much to explore, and besides, my income comes from teaching now, so I don’t need to be a slave to the loom.  Anyway, I find it hard to believe that Jill wanted my work, and that it would really actually sell.  I don’t know why that is, but I wanted to make sure if she hated them, she had an out.  I could always give them away if all else fails.

I didn’t hear anything from Jill, and when I returned from the New York Sheep and Wool Festival on Sunday, my daughter got on my case to find out what happened to the scarves.  I suppose the fact that there wasn’t a box waiting for me when I returned was a good sign.  I wrote Jill, and got an immediate response that of course she got the scarves, they sold in two days and could she have more…  So much for insecurity…

So I boxed up four more, and I definitely want to try to get another warp run on the loom by the weekend.  I know it will be a busy couple of days once my husband returns from golfing, before heading back to Saudi Arabia, and I want to be available to help close the pool, replace the bathroom sinks, get the heating system up and running (surprise, it isn’t working she found out when she tried to turn on the heat last night…), etc…

Meanwhile…

This is proposal week, I finished the proposal for a spring Fibers class at County College of Morris, there is alway that same lurking insecurity that after all that work, they may not accept the proposal, you’d think the amount of conferences I’ve applied to, I’d be use to this sort of thing by now, and I do often get turned down.  But you never move in a forward direction if you don’t try for new opportunities.  I’m nearing completion of the proposal packet for the American Sewing Guild Conference next August in LA.  Do you think a dozen proposals for lectures and workshops is enough?  I entered a show, and cleaned up the studio, finding room for all my purchases, and donations from Betsy.  No matter what comes in, there always seems to be room for one more cone of yarn…  I expect one day to have the walls explode from the weight, but for now, there is a lot of stash in this here tiny space…  Times a wasting…

I gathered with friends for lunch and dinner dates, it felt really good to get out socially, with people who talk about things other than fiber, and I am reminded how important it is to actually talk about things other than fiber…  🙂  (Though I really like talking about fiber…)

Here is shot of the finished socks, my basic sock pattern from Lorna’s Laces, and Schoeller Stahl Fortissima Mexiko sock yarn.  The cold weather is beginning to set in and I’m excited to have a couple pairs of hand knit socks that came from my own hands while just hanging around in airports.

I tried my new Golding Drop Spindle.  I’m instantly in love.  I’ve retired my old mini drop spindle made from a toy wooden wheel from Michaels.  I chain plied the yarn off it using the hand movements Maggie showed me when I visited Shuttle, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder.  It really worked.  The scarf I’m knitting from this Merino/Silk from Red Fish Dyeworks will be pretty funny as it starts out clunky and inconsistent and moves to a more polished consistent plied yarn.  I don’t care, it has been a wonderful learning experience.

And last night, I actually dusted off my wonderful sewing machine and picked up a silk dress I had started many many blog posts ago, and decided that even though this wouldn’t be the season anymore to wear it, I had to finish it, see if it still fit, and move on.  And it is really the prototype for a dress I want to make from an Avoca Handweavers plaid my husband brought me back when he was working in Ireland.

Life is sweet with fiber beneath your feet….

Or at least until April of 2011.  As it turns out in the scheduling world, I am now finished my last teaching gig, until April of 2011, no more dragging 200 pounds of luggage through the airport and no more knitting socks on planes, at least until April.  I can’t describe what it means to be home.  For a nice long while…

I came in yesterday afternoon from the NY Sheep and Wool Festival, my son arrived from National Guard drills just before me, and my husband pulled in in the limo from Saudi Arabia about an hour after I did.  It was the first time all four of us have been home together in months, and it was comforting to know we were all in the same place, even though we were all experiencing severe re-entry, meaning we couldn’t get out of each other’s way fast enough.  Re-entry is hard, especially when both my husband and I re-enter at the same time, he has been gone for weeks, and I’ve been gone about 10 days, other than the brief touch down I had last Wednesday for a few hours before heading out again.  One of the ponds was nearly empty, that made my poor husband even crankier.  I felt bad, but I wasn’t home either.  But I am now, and this morning, I got up, got in the car, and drove my husband back to the airport, heading east on RT. 78, watching the pink haze form behind the clouds as the sun rose over the Manhattan Skyline.  It was so beautiful, worth leaving at 6:30am.  My husband is off golfing for the week, a much needed vacation, and when he returns next weekend, he will close up the pool, do a couple of other much needed repairs, check the heating system, and head back to Saudi Arabia.  Poor guy.

Meanwhile, I get to find my house, find my kids, get reacquainted with the dog, remove the science experiments in the refrigerator, haul off all the trash and recycling, funny how 20 somethings are incapable of remembering when trash/recycle day is…

I’ve had some terrific adventures since my last blog post.  I left off with a stack of fabric from Elfriede’s in Boulder.  Betsy Blumenthal, my hostess took me to Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins, also in Boulder (I think I want to move there, I’m sure this is why there are more than 300 members in the Boulder Handweaving Guild).  What an amazing store.  We wandered for a couple of hours, I’ve never seen so much fiber in one place, really overwhelming.  One of the owners, Maggie, was incredibly kind and demonstrated Navajo 3ply on a spinning wheel, and I was eternally grateful.  I picked up Judith McKenzie’s DVD on Spinning Wheel Mechanics.  I inherited my mother-in-law’s hand made Wes Blackburn spinning wheel and it has a double drive band and I’m not really sure what to do with it.  I’m so use to my ancient 70’s Ashford spinning wheel.  So I was assured the video would answer all my questions.

Betsy and I walked around the corner from Shuttles to this wonderful little eatery, South Side Walnut Cafe.  We had great egg dishes, and the waitress surprised us with a small plate with tiny chocolate cupcakes on it.  Seems it was Tiny Treat Tuesday.  Betsy was such a wonderful hostess and we talked about so many things.  One of the things we saw at Shuttles, that sparked a conversation was my need for a rayon ribbon I could dye.  Most of the ribbons I find are polyamide.  Betsy asked me to remind her to show me all her stash of ribbon yarns when we got back to her studio.

What started out as Tiny Treat Tuesday, turned out to be Trade your Stash Tuesday.  Betsy decided that she didn’t want all her ribbon yarns anymore, she was working on collapse structures, and I would probably use the yarn before she ever did.  She also gave me a huge box of some kind of rayon or silk floss on wooden bobbins.  I’ll have to do a burn test to figure out what it is, but I can definitely use it in some of my scarves.  We headed to UPS to ship both boxes home to NJ.

My flight home Wednesday was uneventful, I finished another pair of socks, and spun some more merino/silk.  My son picked me up from the airport, and I will say, he worked really hard to get my house in shape, clean it up, and I walked in and almost cried.  It was great to be home and not have to reach for the rake.  I could actually cook in my kitchen without having to fumigate everything.  No matter how much I complain about how lazy and unmotivated my son is, he really came through.  Except he forgot to bind my handouts for the NY Sheep and Wool Festival.

So I unpacked in record time, headed to the theater to see a fantastic production of Hairspray at the Papermill Playhouse, (I would normally never have booked theater tickets when I had a one day turn around between teaching gigs, but my husband thought it would be the only night we would be home together, so we changed our subscription to Wednesday night, except he got held up in Saudi, and never made it back.  So I took my neighbor instead.  We had a blast.

I repacked Thursday morning, stopped at the grocery store to restock for the kids, and found lines about 10 deep at the registers.  The place was mobbed.  The woman in line behind me commented how ridiculous people were when the least little bit of a weather issue is predicted.  I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, apparently, there was a wicked Nor’easter coming in Thursday and Friday, how would I have known, I’d been in Boulder CO.  All I could think of was swell, I’m heading up the NY Thruway to the Hudson Valley Region to spend the weekend at a fairgrounds in the middle of a nor’easter.  Crap…

As Tim Gunn would say, “Carry on…”  So I did.  I loaded the car, and headed up the NY Thruway.  The clouds were ominous and broiling, and the sky threatening, which made the most dramatic backdrop for the spectacular colors of the leaves.  This is probably peak season for the changing leaves, and I have never had a more enjoyable ride.  I arrived at the Bed and Breakfast, a lovely Victorian inn, in Red Hook, NY in just under two hours.  Then it started to rain, and it rained for the next two days…

Most of the other teachers from the NY Sheep and Wool Festival were staying at the bed and breakfast, and it was a little like a sorority weekend, even though the other teachers like Lily Chin, Amy Tyler, and Candace Strick, were all knitters and spinners, we had the common language of thread and of teaching.  It was great to ask about each other’s classes and share our experiences.  And I loved finding out some of the inside scoop, do you know that Lily Chin keeps her overflow of yarn in the oven?  I definitely don’t feel so bad about my exploding stash…  We fell in love with a fabulous restaurant, called Flatiron, in Red Hook, within walking distance of the Grand Duchess Bed and Breakfast, where we were staying.  I had one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted.  St. Bernardus Watou. They had it on tap.

I gave two workshops on Friday, a beginner Inkle Loom class in the morning, I had twelve enthusiastic students, most brought their own looms and I rented the remainder the small Inklette from Ashford.  They all had warps on in short order and were weaving away within a couple of hours.  The afternoon class was an advanced Inkle class, I covered more difficult techniques like a 7 thread pick up, 1:1 Name draft, and supplemental warp on an inkle loom.  All of the students worked hard, this is a tough class to get through in a three hour time period, but they all stayed with it and seemed to understand enough to be able to carry on at home.  They had to come with a pre-warped loom, and it was a complicated set up to start with.

Saturday I had the great privilege of working with two professors in the fashion design department at Marist College, and together we judged the NY Make it with Wool Competition. The link is for the 2009 winners, and I’m hoping the 2010 winners will be posted soon.  This was one of my most favorite judging experiences.  I think I loved it because I was working with all age groups.  There was an entry from a girl who was only seven years old.  And the entries were placed in age divisions, including adults.  There weren’t a lot of entries, but we had a great time carefully looking at each entry, inside and out, taking notes, and then came my favorite part.  Each person who entered a garment, tried it on, and we got to personally interview each contestant, check the fit, and really see the piece come to life on the person it was intended for.  I’m always surprised at how different a garment reads on a person, rather than flat on a table.  Interviewing the pre-teen girls was such an honor and such a pleasure.  They were so poised and chatty and willing to wow us with their enthusiasm for the craft.  It was a great experience.

As a thank you gift, we were given a tote, with a couple of sheep products inside, and a $50. gift certificate.  Well the only thing I could do with that was head straight to the vendors.  OMG!  Not only were there hundreds of vendors with every kind of fiber related product, but there were thousands of people lined up, packing booth after booth, it was almost paralyzing.  Moving along with the crowd, because it was too difficult to stop and look at anything, I did a quick survey of two of the buildings for what I wanted most, a new small drop spindle to replace the one I travel with, which was made from a toy wooden wheel from Michaels Craft Shop.

I stumbled upon Golding Ring Spindles, OMG!  My fiber buddy Betts Silver Shacht happened to run into me as I was having the dilemma of my life trying to decide which spindle needed to come home with me.  She authoritatively pointed me into the right direction, explaining how they were weighted and the weight appeared on the hang tag and based on what was already in my bag, Betts encouraged me to get this little gem.  I can’t wait to chain play off what’s currently on my little spindle and give this one a whorl…

I managed to fight the crowds, hug many of my guild members as I ran into them, spend some time chatting with an old old friend Marie, who is now an avid knitter, we actually went through college together studying fibers back in the 1970’s.  I found some things I had needed to get, a bottle of Synthrapol, and a bulb spritzer for felting.  And then I found Lisa Merian’s booth, Spinners Hill.  I adore Lisa’s carded fleeces and rovings.  Her color sense and palettes (she confided in me that she used many of my color forecasts I wrote for Handwoven as inspiration, no wonder I loved them…)  And her Corriedale Finn Rambouillet Cross Sheep wool is a joy to felt.  I stood staring at one of her crazy balls of roving for a long time and finally decided to get 2 1/2 pounds of it and hope one day I can make some felt yardage and have a felt “Daryl Jacket” of my own.

In addition to all my wonderful treasures, I brought home a case of wine, one of my favorites from a NY State Winery I had visited last April with my sisters.  The El Paso Winery had a booth, along with one I’d never heard of, but my sister highly recommended for their flavorful and highly creative wines, the Pazdar Winery. I had to pick up a couple of bottles of a lemoncello flavored wine called Ravishing Sunrise.

I gave one final lecture Sunday morning, a private class to many of the Make it With Wool participants, on Solving the Mystery of Fit.  They were so excited, and the girl who won the Jr. Division, who had made a crocheted wool bikini (it was pretty amazing) with a handwoven beach cover up (equally amazing) asked lots of questions about working with handwovens. There was another entrant who had woven fabric and was hoping to use it next year.  I was thrilled to answer any question for teenage handweavers wanting to make clothing from their handwoven fabric.  I think I died and went to handweaving teacher heaven.

So now I’m home.  This week is proposal writing week, find the studio week, find the children and get them back on track, and start the process of cleaning and organizing the house.  The leaves are everywhere, and the wood crib empty, so I put my son on deck clearing duty and had him haul wood from the back wood piles and refill the crib by the garage in anticipation of needing a fire in the wood stove before the week is out.  Tomorrow I start an eight week class on sewing at the Newark Museum, but for now…

I get to play…  I’m hoping for a really really long winter…  Stay tuned…

I’m in Boulder Colorado.  Can I say this is a gorgeous city?  The vistas, the colors, the light, the crisp autumn air, (OK, the air is a little thin, I live at sea level), the changing leaves, it doesn’t get any better than this.

I gave a two day workshop on making a vest from handwoven fabric to the Handweavers Guild of Boulder on Saturday and Sunday.  The class was held at the Boulder Rec Center, and I couldn’t stop staring out the window at the view.  The space was huge, and everyone had plenty of room to work, and to spread out, the fabrics were gorgeous, and everyone seemed to have a great time, and told me how much they learned.

There were some wonderful details, combinations of fabrics, including using the natural fringed edge of a commercial fabric as an interesting band detail.  I have students study their fabrics for what makes them unique, whether they are handwoven or commercial, some of the most interesting design elements come from using parts of fabrics that might not be considered usable, like the selvedges.

Of course, no matter how many days I have to teach a class, it never seems to be enough, there is always the frantic race at the end, and it is hard to get a group photo and rarely is anyone ever completely finished, there are always hours of hand sewing to be done later.  I love when I get a group photo months later of all the finished vests!

The Saturday night of the workshop, a few of us went out to eat at a wonderful upscale Mexican Restaurant in Boulder called Agave.  The food was delicious and the presentation artful, and the textures and colors made for a great photo, possibly inspiration for another painted warp.

This morning, Monday, I gave a lecture to the general guild (OMG, Boulder has more than 300 members!) on Great Garments from Handwoven Cloth.  It was a roller coaster kind of lecture; I raced through the entire process from initial inspiration, to designing the cloth, sett and finishing, measuring oneself and selecting patterns, to basic sewing techniques, and handling of handwoven fabrics.  I got lots of positive comments after the lecture, and I have to say, I’ve sat through a lot of guild business meetings in my career, but never have I seen a more efficient group, plow through the business in a succinct manner, get through show and tell, and have a 15 minute break to get ready for the speaker, all in under an hour.  Impressive…

Betsy Blumenthal is my hostess, she is a fantastic weaver, you may know her from her years at Schacht.  (For the non weavers, Schacht is a really well known and respected loom manufacturer).  Betsy took me to lunch after the guild meeting this morning, to a Boulder landmark called the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse.  The Teahouse was built in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, and sent in pieces to Boulder, its sister city.  The building is spectacular, the decorative elements inspirational and colorful, and the food absolutely delicious. I had the Mediterranean Salmon Wrap, poached salmon, Israeli couscous, mixed greens, feta, hummus and pickled onions with lemon-mint vinaigrette.  All in the wrap!  It came with sides of a shredded beet salad and a shredded carrot and raisin salad.  The presentation alone was worth a photograph.

Then, we headed to Elfriede’s Fine Fabrics.  It is hard to comprehend that I’ve been in two world class fine fabric stores within two weeks of each other, Waechter’s Silk Shop in Asheville, and now Elfriede’s in Boulder.  The fabric store was so inspiring, “touch” overload, the cashmeres, the velvets, the silks, the wools, the remnant bin…  My poor credit card had quite the workout.  There was a silk burnout fabric that I absolutely fell in love with, the print and color palette was so appealing, I rarely get a fabric that isn’t a remnant, but I had to go home with this.  And I found a beautiful (actually Betsy found it) deflected double weave wool silk fabric that I had to have at least a quarter yard.  It was so soft, of course it was Italian, and at $40. a yard, I settled for a quarter yard.  Elfrieda herself was so excited to have a couple of weavers in the shop who knew weave structure, fiber content, and she proudly showed us the highlights of her collection.

Then I hit the fabric remnants’ bin.  🙂

OK, so on top of what I bought at Waechter’s a week or so ago, my little stack of fabrics from this trip, will keep me sewing all winter.  I need to sew.  A lot.  It has been too long, and I am just itching to make some new wardrobe additions and really play with my new fabrics.  I’ve promised myself that I won’t let all this great new stash just sit around.  I think I will start a self imposed “garment of the week” club.  I have the patterns, I have the zippers and thread, and all I need is time.  Which of course eludes me…

I have one more lecture to give, tomorrow night, and then home, and a quick unpack and repack and then the final workshop of the year (not including the Newark Museum weekly class) at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival.  I have about two weeks of writing proposals for conferences and teaching opportunities in 2011 and 2012.  And then I’m really hoping the universe will be kind and reward me for all of my intense work this year, and let me play, uninterrupted for 4 or 5 months.  OK, I know I’m being delusional, life is what happens when you are planning something else, but I can dream can’t I?

Stay tuned…

Jumpstart Your Sewing Skills

In other news…  I’m stressed.  Are we surprised?  This has been a fire extinguisher week, you know, where you run around trying to put out fires which spring up when your back is turned?  I’m almost packed, heading to Boulder Colorado tomorrow.  Finished up the run of scarves I had on the loom, printed packed and shipped 60 pounds of handouts and monographs to Colorado.  Dealt with the stupidest stuff, like a missing insurance card, so my son can’t get the truck inspected, car repairs, bicycle repairs, like the rod that holds the pedal falls off and rolls down the storm drain.  This was an eye rolling kind of week, the kind you just get through one hour at a time.  You feel like you are swimming in Jello…

Still, no one died, and everyone is doing what they should be doing, my husband is stuck in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, on a job that won’t end, (which is the source of some of my stress, I need him home and I really miss him…) but he is fine and will eventually be home to close up the pool (note to son, while I’m away please keep cleaning the leaves out of the pool), and in fact something really really wonderful happened this week, I had a meeting with the department heads at County College of Morris about teaching a class there next spring based on my Fiber Boot Camp, which I’m so excited about I can’t focus on what I’m suppose to be doing.  There is no guarantee they will accept the proposal, but I’m gonna try…