Daryl's Blog

…After reviewing her calendar for the next week, she decided to go ahead and premedicate…

One of my students today shared her favorite T-shirt quote, and I had to write it down.  One more month of teaching, the last hard push for the year, and I’m almost there.  This trip so far is going down in the annals as one of the highlights.  I finished the three day Garment Construction class today at Haywood Community College.  What a pleasure it has been to work in this facility, the students were all a joy, interesting and interested, enthusiastic, and running with ideas.  Amy Putansu, head of the Fibers Department, was also a joy to work with, always ready to jump in with whatever I needed, and thrilled with the course content, and of course, it always thrills me when there is talk of having me back.

I moved to a different hostess tonight, I’ll be staying with Barb Butler, the other half of the Sutherland Handweaving Studio, I mentioned the studio in my previous blog post.  Tomorrow I’ll be giving a one day color and inspiration class, this is the class where we just get to play all day with color and yarn.

Anyway, Barb lives in a lovely home in the mountains in Asheville, actually it is pretty breathtaking, the views are incredible, and her home lovely and spacious, there is a crystal chandelier over my bed.  I want to live here.  It rained heavily all day, but that only enhanced the lush views of the mountains, the greenery, the flowers, the gardens.

Barb and her husband planned a real treat for me tonight.  Both excellent cooks, Barb and her husband have a wood fired bread/pizza oven in the back of the house, and they had prepared their own pizza dough earlier in the day.  By the time I had arrived, everything was pretty much  ready to go, it was make your own pizza night, and Bill rolled out the fresh dough, tossing it a few times, just like they do in the pizza parlor, and each of us had our own pie to assemble.  The list of ingredients was inspiring.  There were bowls of hot Italian sausage, roasted fennel, red pepper, red onion, huge sliced mushrooms, artichoke hearts, three types of cheeses, fresh tomatoes, and of course homemade pizza sauce.  Bill put on the pizza seasonings, and one by one, we carried each pizza downstairs and outside, where Bill artfully placed each pie into the 700 degree wood fired oven one at a time, each pizza took only about a minute and a half to cook.  True Italian thin crust pizza.

Once cooked, Bill sprinkled on fresh Basil, and when they were all ready to eat, Barb sliced all the pizzas and we dug in.  Bill served a 2003 French Gigondas wine, one of the nicest wines I’ve ever tasted, what a great evening.  I’ve had some pretty terrific adventures while on the road, and this evening has to be up there with the top ten.  Asheville is a magical place, I’m still partial to NJ of course, but I’m met some amazing people, and had some terrific adventures so far, and more to come…

Stay tuned…

I’m here, in North Carolina, up in the mountains in Asheville.  I’m teaching a three day garment construction workshop at the Haywood Community College, in Clyde NC.  Can I say I am so jealous and wish we had this program near us?  Amy Putansu took over this amazing program from Catherine Ellis a couple of years ago, and this is my first visit to this wonderful fiber studio, brimming with looms, yarn and energetic students of all ages.  I have eleven students in my three day class, and I’m enjoying everyone of them, each has something to bring to the table, they are quick and efficient, and all of them competent sewers.

I’m staying with Karen Donde, who I’ve known for a long time, a southern NJ transplant, now enjoying the creative energy of the arts community in Asheville, Karen is a frequent contributor to Handwoven Magazine, and has opened a studio with Barb Butler, called the Sutherland Handweaving Studio, where they sell looms, handwoven scarves and accessories, and give classes in weaving.  Last night the Downtown arts district had their fall open house, and I set up shop so to speak, selling my books, a sort of book signing, and enjoyed free flowing wine and the opportunity to just sit and spin on my little drop spindle, always handy since I’m never without my Happy Bag.  There was a display featuring the donations for the raffle to raise money for prizes at the Blue Ridge Fiber Show 2010, I will be judging the handweaving component on Tuesday, the teal pieced tote on the right is my donation.  The handwoven scraps for the bag came from the leftovers from the Convergence 2008 Design Challenge.

I’m staying with Karen for the first part of the trip, her house in the outskirts of Asheville is lovely, with mountain views, and as we headed out this morning for the second day of the workshop at Haywood, I was thrilled to see Hot Air Balloons soaring above the horizon, the intense whoosh of the hot air, breaking the still of the morning.

Stay tuned…

I’ve mentioned before in previous blogs how much I love living very near NYC.  I wish for time to see everything, read everything, experience everything, and eat everything I’d like to try in this world, alas, there are way too many things to do, see, experience than anyone can possibly hope to fit in in one life time!  But I keep trying…

I’ve also mentioned in previous blogs that I have lunch once a week, during the “school” year, with a handful of assorted teachers from the local school district.  It started when I was diagnosed with cancer, and has continued for nine years, and now, almost all of the teachers are now retired and able to do things during the week they could never have done before during the school year.  So four of us headed into NYC on Wednesday, we all met at the Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle.

I timed everything just right on my own commute in, and arrived a good 45 minutes ahead of schedule.  I wandered through the Time Warner building, looking at all the windows of the shops, they weren’t open yet, taking notes on a couple of design details I’d like to try, and I wandered through Borders, which was open also taking some notes of books to add to my wish list.  I went out and sat on a bench along Columbus Circle, near the museum, to wait for my friends.  The weather was glorious, the traffic around the circle entertaining, the vendors hawking their tours, bike rentals and handsome cab rides were all out in force.  The horse driven cabs were of course gorgeous, I was fascinated watching how the drivers deftly managed to weave in and out of traffic alongside cabs and buses and crazy commuters, while the horses, in all their ribboned finery,  just clip clopped along paying no mind… (Did I think to get a picture?)

I love the Museum of Art and Design, their themed exhibits are alway interesting and thought provoking, great to see with a group of women friends, especially this group, a retired art teacher, music teacher and the Gifted and Talented program teacher.  The discussions are fun, and meaningful, and provide great lunch talk.  This exhibit in particular.  The exhibit was called Dead or Alive, and all of the artworks were created using something that was once alive, but is now dead.  Dead bugs, animal bones, Dandelion seed pods (I’m still trying to figure that one out, they are so fragile), dried sardines, silk cocoons, lots and lots of feathers, lots of social commentary, lots of decorative works, and my favorite, was a loom, sitting in the middle of the floor, in one of the side galleries, near it a pile of mouse skeletons, and on the loom, a beautiful grey cloth, upon close inspection (and after reading the wall description) turns out to have been made from mouse fur.  OK, I know that’s weird, but seeing a loom in an art exhibition is actually quite an anomaly, and seeing beautiful competent, usable cloth made from something so odd and revolting drew me in, in a way I can’t quite describe.  Of course I wasn’t allowed to take a picture, the guard was standing three feet from the loom, but many of the works are in a virtual tour of the museum on their website, and the link for this image is wonderful.  The thumbnail from the site appears here.

We all went to lunch in a sort of average uninspired trattoria called RINO, (we are always trying new restaurants), my salad was good, avocado and shrimp, you can’t go wrong with that combination, and we headed off to the theater.  Brief Encounters just opened, I believe it is still in previews, fresh from “sold-out” performances in London, and I can say it was a lovely way to spend a Wednesday afternoon, the show is an interesting concept, and full of British humor and timing, and though the show overall seemed a bit silly, I’m glad I saw it and again, it made for interesting dialog afterwards.

The premise of the show is a stage recreation of an iconic black and white masterpiece from 1945 of two strangers who meet at a train station, fall madly in love, and realize that they can’t continue their passionate affair, as they are both married, with children.  So clips of the film, seamlessly woven into the stage production, and some clever special effects, and some occasionally hilarious choreography and flawless British timing, made for an original piece of theatre, though in this day and age, the passions of two lovers captured in a period black and white film, are pretty lost on a contemporary audience.  I am thinking the cast, many from the London show, mostly British, was thinking maybe their audience was mostly dead.  The director Emma Rice claims that the 1945 David Lean’s masterpiece film “Brief Encounter” is “almost part of their DNA in Britain”.  Since I doubt most Americans have ever seen the film, (or at least I hadn’t), the premise of the show was sort of lost and came across as silly.

We all headed downtown after the show, and stopped at Thalia, a lounge on 8th Avenue around 50th.  We had wine and cheese, and Warm Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert, with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream and a scoop of pistachio.  Can I say I died and went to food heaven?  I highly recommend this restaurant, it is definitely on my “need to return” list.  (My new favorite cheese is called Humboldt Fog!)

The day got even better.  I walked my friends to Port Authority, where they all headed back to NJ, and I headed over to 35th and Park to the September meeting of the Textile Study Group of New York.  I rarely am able to get in to the meetings, but I had to attend this one.  The speaker was Iris Apfel, one of my fashion heroes, who calls herself a “geriatric starlet”.  Iris is 89 years old, and  is considered a world class shopper, who spent her life collecting and mixing items, both high and low end, current and vintage, and has a collection of garments and accessories that has the MET salivating at her doorstep.  A retrospective of her closet was mounted at the MET in 2005, titled Iris Apfel, Rare Bird of Fashion (I own the book of course), which then traveled to museums around the country, where I finally got to view it at the Nassau County Museum of Art.  She and her husband Carl founded a legendary textile design company, Old World Weavers, which they ran until they retired in 1992.  Old World Weavers restored many of the fabrics in the White House during the administration of several presidents.  Can I say that Iris Apfel is probably the most interesting person I’ve ever heard speak, and I am so glad I was home long enough to be able to catch her lecture and I’m really really grateful to the Textile Study Group of NY for making her appearance possible.

So I’m home now, preparing for the next trip, to Asheville, NC the end of next week.  All the handouts, pattern paper, interfacings, and monographs have been cut, printed and shipped ( a big thank you to my son Eric for lending a hand), and the house is quiet, it is a lovely Saturday and I’m onto the next scarf warp on my loom.  I’ve gathered the colors, using a more neutral palette, again drawing from one of my forecast palettes from Handwoven Magazine, and I finished the warp wrap, and will have lunch and start winding the warp.

Tomorrow I will be giving the keynote address at the North Jersey Chapter of the American Sewing Guild‘s Birthday Bash at the Barn in Clifton, which should be lots of fun, and I get to dress up in my handwoven clothes, and put on some make-up, and get out of the house for a few hours.  I have the tendency to not get out of my pajamas on days where I don’t have to go anywhere…  🙂

Stay tuned…

I took a quick trip to Syracuse NY last Friday, about a four hour drive north west of me, to give the keynote address to the Syracuse Weavers Guild to help celebrate their 50th anniversary as a guild.  I was honored they asked me, and I took some time earlier in the week to look through some of my extensive archives to see what kinds of stuff was happening in the weaving world in 1960.  Wow, was I in for a good time.

First off, I had all four issues of Handweaver and Craftsman from 1960.  What a wealth of information and a complete time warp!  I had the best time leafing through the articles, and the ads, and the society pages (including the wedding announcement of one Mrs. Osma Gallinger to a Mr. Tod.  Mrs. Gallinger, author of many weaving tomes, and director of Creative Crafts in East Berlin PA, was to be married in Massachusetts, hosted by her daughter.  The announcement goes on to say that since Mrs. Gallinger would be moving to Coral Gables Florida, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Manning, president and secretary of the newly formed Central Pennsylvania Weavers’ Guild will be taking over managing Creative Crafts, which we all know today as The Mannings…).  Who knew?

Anyway, I loved seeing ads for the Structo Loom, and the Peacock loom, both are sitting in my studio today, the Peacock Loom was advertised for a mere $11.50 F.O.B. Waupun, WI.  The clothes, the yarn ads, the articles on Peter Collingwood, Dorothy Liebes, Marli Erhman, and Jack Lenor Larson kept me reading for hours.  And who knew the Textile Fiber Products Identification Act was passed effective March 1960 requiring that

…All yarns will be identified by fiber content, which will help the weavers to a great extent in labeling textiles.  However, sewing threads and handicraft threads are exempt from labeling…

I gave the lecture Friday night, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and the journey to the past, of course we ran out of time, one of my faults, once I get started, I have been known to run over…  Saturday I presented a half day workshop for the main guild meeting, one I haven’t done recently, so it was a bit of a treat as well.  The topic was “What to Do with Leftovers”, not of course limited to scraps of handwoven fabric, but ways to use  all the piles of scarves and dishtowels we seem to amass.  For a hands on project, I brought a pile of stuff, and everyone made post cards from scraps of handwoven fabrics, some art papers, Ultrasuede scraps, some sequins and confetti, and a photo or saying.  The whole postcard was covered with an acetate sheet from a book cover, stitched on with a sewing machine.  I set out Saturday afternoon for home, and drove straight through for four hours, unpacking, and by Sunday morning, I was worthless.  I had plans to catch up all day Sunday, I managed to clean the kitchen, and then crawled back to bed with my book and my happy bag and stayed there the rest of the afternoon…   🙂

In other news, I worked feverishly all week trying to empty my loom of the scarf warp I put on before I left for Sievers in August.  I kept thinking how hard could this be to knock out four scarves.  I felt like I was swimming through Jello.  I just couldn’t get a rhythm,  and the hem stitching at both ends of each scarf seemed to take hours.  I’m getting faster, but this is painful.  Now I remember why I never wanted to go back to production weaving.  This is a good exercise for me, even if I end up turning down an opportunity to sell my scarves at the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery.  I put on nine yards, for eight two yard scarves.  On a small floor loom, there shouldn’t have been much loom waste.  Yet I was about a half yard short.  I don’t know where the missing half yard went, but I spent all of today figuring out how to squeak out the last tiny bit of warp on this run of scarves.  I actually spliced in a dummy warp, which isn’t so difficult, but this is the second time this year I’ve had to weave to the splice, which is incredibly painful and laborious.  The little knots get caught on each other as they pass through the heddles, and I had to basically hand pick each weft shot for about 20 inches using 10/2 tencel.

But I stayed with it, out of pure stubbornness, I was going to get four full length scarves from this warp if it killed me.  I long ago realized I was losing money on this venture, but that wasn’t why I agreed to do this.  So I wove to within a couple of inches from the splice, and then hemstitched the top of the last scarf, just about three inches from the reed and the first splice, and I’ll cut off the scarves and wash them and see what I actually did on Thursday, since I’m getting a well deserved mini break, I’ll be in NYC all day tomorrow with friends.  So the moral of the story here is to put on enough warp to begin with, duh, I’m planning next time to put on a twelve yard warp for five scarves.  Stay tuned…

I had a wonderful unexpected surprise tonight, a visit from my oldest and dearest friend, Candiss Cole.  I’ve written about her before, we go back to 1980 when we met across the aisle in a craft fair, she is an incredible handweaver, designer, business women, and an incredible friend.  She was passing by on her way from Detroit to Tarrytown, NY to do another craft exhibition, (look at a map, Detroit is no where near here), Candiss and Rodger have been traveling for a couple of days, but we were on the way, and they stopped in for dinner.

We all got to chatting, sitting around the table on the deck, on this lovely breezy September night, including my two children, and somehow the subject came up that I like to knit socks while I’m on the plane.  I mentioned I always carry around my “happy bag”.  This of course meant I had to bring out my happy bag and display the contents, which produced lots of comments from my children.  Brianna, the 17 year old geeky one, defended me by saying, “Of course I have a happy bag as well, and it is full of Rubik’s cubes, and all the variations, and when I’m stressed or bored, I can pull out a Rubik’s cube and make myself happy.”  My 20 year old son, not to be outdone, mentioned that the contents of his happy bag would get him arrested in five states.  We all enjoyed a good laugh though I was giving him the evil eye across the table…

So I pulled out my “happy bag”, which I keep in my Vera Wang tote/purse, so it is always available for de-stressing or to relieve boredom when I am away from my studio, like on a plane, and shared the contents with everyone at the table.

First up was of course a sock.  I started knitting a new pair on the trip out to Wisconsin a week and a half ago.  I can’t believe how quickly they knit up.

Next was a wad of hand-dyed merino/silk roving from Red Fish Dyeworks, I bought last April at the CNCH conference in northern California.  I have a very small drop spindle, made from a dowel and a wooden wheel from a craft shop like Michaels.  So I’m spinning up the roving, yes I have two spinning wheels at home but there is never time to work on them at home, and I’m finding lots of time to spin on a drop spindle while I’m on the road.

I wasn’t thrilled when plying spaced dyed singles, getting that barber pole effect, but I read about Navajo 3-ply, and did some checking on Google and YouTube and somewhere found a tutorial and realized that Navajo 3-ply was just one giant long chain stitch run through the spinning wheel creating a three ply yarn so the color stays on top of itself.  The end result is beautiful.  I’m not experienced here, this is my first attempt, but I’m proud of it and the fact that like a 20 something, I wanted to learn a technique and looked it up on the internet.  🙂  How’s that for a 55 year old trained to spin back in the 70’s?

Anyway, I took a lace motif pattern from my late mother-in-laws knitting stash, and reworked it, scaling it down, and started knitting a scarf from the small ball I have of the 3-ply merino/silk.  I actually worked on it while I was in Harrisville, getting lots of opinions from my students who were much more experienced in knitting than I was, and from the Harrisville staff who couldn’t have been more helpful.  It was sort of a group project.  After trying different size needles, and reworking the design many times, I’m pretty happy with this little swatch, that will grow to be a scarf one day when I finish spinning and plying all my roving.

So that’s what’s in my “Happy Bag”.  Candiss wanted to know where I got the name, and I’m not sure, I sort of made it up, this little bag stays with me and it is plain white, but loaded with lovely color and texture, and projects that are small and portable, and I work on them in places I would never thought I could produce or create anything.  So far I’ve made a pair of socks, I’m almost through another sock, and I’m working  my way through the roving I bought last spring.  What’s in YOUR happy bag?