Must be the full moon…
What a bizarre day, I never left my desk, stuff just kept coming in faster than I could take care of it. I had high hopes of working on more of the hot mats/mug mats, but alas, the universe, or the full moon, or whatever forces were causing a cosmic redirect, I was stuck in front of a glowing screen all day. Now I’m not saying this wasn’t a positive thing. I got the best news today. If you followed my blog back in the end of September, I worked hard for a couple of weeks, reworking all of my lectures/workshops to make them more appropriate for the sewing community instead of the handweaving community. I had been asked to submit proposals for the American Sewing Guild Conference in Atlanta next August. It is a market I’d dearly love to be more connected with, after all, I am a sewer (sorry, I’ll never get use to the new PC word ‘sewist’) and I weave to have something to sew.
Anyway, I spend lots of time writing proposals, entering exhibitions, and doing the waiting game once I package everything together and send it off. Sometimes I even forget I entered or submitted, which is probably not a bad way to handle the stress of waiting. Today in my inbox, I got a “Congratulations, you’ve been accepted to teach…” letter from the American Sewing Guild, and they want me to teach 4 classes at their 2010 conference in Atlanta. Can I tell you how excited I am?
On top of that, I just finished most of the final details for the April 2011 Ontario Canada provincial conference. I will be teaching there, and giving one of the keynote addresses. That’s been in the works since last summer. I spent a good deal of time today, coincidentally, on the phone with a woman from Ontario, who found me searching the internet, and wanted to know more about my monographs on sewing, I had trouble realizing that she just found me on the internet, completely independently from the Ontario conference and Convergence in Albuquerque, where I’m also teaching next July, the booklet just became available for that. Anyway, the woman was lovely to chat with, and towards the end of the conversation, she had me convinced that I need to look down the road a bit to one of my next goals, and bring it up further on the to do list. That would be turning my monographs into DVD’s. I bought the camera equipment last year, to be able to film the Step by Step process. I’ve been looking at some of the sewing videos out there, and haven’t seen anything I really thought would work for how I would want my DVD’s to read. The woman from Ontario encouraged me to pick up David Coffin’s DVD on shirtmaking. She raved about it, and so of course, I immediately clicked on my trusty Amazon.com account and stuck it in my shopping cart, along with his book/DVD on making pants. I’ll let you know what I think. Always love an excuse to buy books on Amazon.
Speaking of books, my neighbor/friend is a media center specialist for a neighboring High School, and her school’s book club was sponsoring a fund raising event at a local Barnes and Noble. Again, not to pass up a chance to just hang around in a book store all evening, I managed to dump a couple of hundred dollars, mostly on books for my daughter, she is seriously into Manga, but I did pick up a couple of movies I’ve had on my Amazon wish list for awhile. I love the movie genre that takes a close look at a creative genius, uncovers their pain, their obsessions, their muses, and their passions. I got a copy of Pollock with Ed Harris, and Goya’s Ghosts with Natalie Portman. I also picked up Frida, with Salma Hayek. I’ll let you know what I think of them once I’ve viewed them.
I cruised through the bargain book section of Barnes and Noble, and found a couple of little treasures, Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary? First, I love Maureen Dowd, she is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times. And secondly, how could you go wrong with the title? The book is a snarky look at feminism and the collision of the sexes. The reviews are all over the place, so for $5.98 for the hard cover, I’m game. I’ll let you know.
I also picked up Julia Cameron’s memoir, Floor Sample. It had a dress form on the front cover. Julia Cameron wrote the well respected creativity book called “The Artist’s Way”, which has been on my shelf forever. Again, the reviews are all over the place, but I thought it was worth picking up for $5.98 for the hardcover.
I mentioned that the latest issue of Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot came in yesterday, finally, I was probably the last to get my copy. In it is the brochure for the HGA’s conference in Albuquerque next July, called Convergence. Since I am teaching, I get to participate in early registration, but I couldn’t really do that until my magazine came in. And come in it did! All four copies. I am all over the place in this magazine. Which is why I got four copies! I have a book review starting on page 9, a photograph of my piece The Spouse, on page 20, from the Small Expressions exhibit, and my article starting on page 31, the second installment of a three part series on the Designer’s Challenge from the Tampa Bay Convergence in 2008. I ripped the Albuquerque conference brochure out of the middle of the magazine, and started to look through all the offerings. It isn’t hard for me to fill out the registration, since I am teaching in every time slot, I don’t get to pick anything, but the tours before the conference look wonderful. So wonderful that I booked two tickets for the Georgia O’Keefe Ghost Ranch tour and I’m dragging along my husband.
So, the bottom line here, is my next summer is pretty set, I’ll be on the road more than I’ll be home. With two 5 day classes in August, at Sievers and at Harrisville in NH, along with the ASG conference in Atlanta and Convergence, and a 4 day class in fiber basics called Fiber Boot Camp at the Newark Museum in NJ, it doesn’t look like it will be much of a summer! I’ve also got to write up proposals for two conferences for the summer of 2011. Can you see my eyes rolling around in my head? It is hard to follow the “One Day at a Time” way of thinking, when you are writing proposals for 2011, and 2009 isn’t even finished. Oh the life of an artist…
All of the scheduled events I’ve mentioned above can be found with contact information on my website.
Oh, and I almost forgot, the invitations for Art Connections 6 at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University are out, I will have two pieces in the show. The opening reception is January 17, 2010 from 2-5 pm if you are in the north Jersey area. The show runs from January 17 – February 13, 2010
Stay tuned…
I’m in heaven…
Wow, this was one of those rare gifts of a day, where the planets just align and someone says, Daryl, you are going to spend the whole day having fun. Actually, the fun started last night, in the dreary cold rain, my daughter and I drove to our Jockey Hollow Guild meeting, where one of the members, Phyllis Hirsch led us in a holiday make-it-take-it project, making a ribbon ornament. I like little projects like this, first because it is quick, and I can see doing something like this with handwoven scraps, and secondly, it is one of those kinds of projects that allows you to work on it and chat non stop through the whole meeting. 🙂
In the middle of the meeting, my dearest friend Candiss Cole called on my cell phone. A rare treat, I didn’t expect to hear from her for awhile, since we got together and played last month! Candiss, turns out, was in NYC, and had an extra day to hang out, and called to see if I could come out and play. Woo hoo! We scheduled a lunch date for today, and I went back to the guild meeting.
This morning, after I got my daughter off to school, I headed over to the cancer center, and had my annual check-up with my oncologist. There is always this tiny bit of apprehension when I go, fear that maybe she might find something that could start the whole breast cancer scenario all over again. But I went, and the visit went well, and I got a clean bill of health and was told to call in December of 2010 for my next visit. Woo Hoo! 🙂
I picked up Candiss at a hotel in NJ, and off we went to play. We hung in the studio for awhile, catching up and looking at each others ideas and directions, something we always use to do regularly. We headed off to lunch, Candiss knows my Thursday Philosophy Club ladies, and we all had a delightful lunch, and afterwards Candiss and I went SHOE SHOPPING! This is one of those things that works so much better with a shopping buddy. A new DSW opened not far from me, how did Candiss know about it and not me? She lives in Arizona! So we went to the new DSW and OMG! I headed right for the back room and the clearance shoes. We had so much fun trying on the Steve Madden and the Stuart Weitzman shoes, I tried on shoes that nearly broke my ankle, after all, I’m over 50. And I ended up buying some very practical pairs of casual shoes, and one killer pair of leather lace-up boots. Candiss and I both wanted them but I won!
I dropped her off at her hotel, quick hugs to her husband Rodger for giving her up for the day, and I headed home to find a quiet house, and boxes everywhere in my living room. UPS, and the USPS had a field day at our house. We are buying most of our Christmas presents online, we usually do, so we let the Brown Santa do all the traveling. Speaking of the Brown Santa, my son is now working as a seasonal driver assistant for UPS, and it was so cute when he walked in around dinner time, in his brown uniform. Since he leaves for boot camp on January 4th, the seasonal work was perfect for giving him some extra cash and a reason to get out of bed in the morning…
Anyway, if you are a handweaver, you are most likely following Tien Chiu’s blog, she is a very talented complex weaver, embarking on weaving her wedding dress. We had some correspondence earlier in the year about some interfacing issues. And you should know that Tien is one of the founders of the online weaving community Weavolution. Tien has been taking a break from weaving and has picked up one of her other specialties, making chocolate, and I’m not talking a couple of milk chocolate eggs here, I’m talking combination’s that I can’t even begin to imagine. She has been carefully blogging about the whole chocolate experience, and I had to replace my keyboard twice this week for drooling too much while reading about it.
So, back to my living room full of boxes. I worked through the Amazon boxes, hiding the presents from the family, and then I got to a box that had Tien Chiu’s return address on it. What could be in this box? I opened it and well, I screamed for 20 minutes. Good thing no one was home. I don’t know what I did to earn a box of Tien’s chocolates, but there is was, in the Priority box from the USPS, and I ran right up to the computer to write a thank you note. Wow. The first one I sampled was the square white one in the front, Coconut Tequila Lime fudge. OMG! Tien if you are reading this, I LOVE YOU!
Writing this blog has been a wonderful experience this year, I’ve met so many readers through it, and gotten some terrific feedback. After my last post, reader Diane thought that the little bowls I was making from coiled scraps of handwoven fabric would make great hot mats for the kitchen or table. I had actually made a hot mat first, to get back into the technique, and then played around with the bowls. Diane had a point, a hot mat is a usable functional item, and would be a great gift, a fiber bowl isn’t the most useful thing, and it is hard to dust. It is a lot easier to just zoom around in a circle on a flat mat, and so I did. I made a couple of 8″ round mats, and then thought about how smaller versions would make great mug mats.
Caution Spoiler! If you are in the Frances Irwin Guild, do not read this paragraph! For everyone else, the guild is having its annual exchange at the holiday luncheon this year, and this year’s exchange is mug mats. Weave six and get six in return. I hadn’t planned on participating, but these little mug mats are so cute. So I am going to make up a half dozen of the 5 inch size and take them to the holiday luncheon on the 15th.
Speaking of my blog… Jenny, one of my most prolific commenters (and I do love when people comment!), mentioned to me last night at the guild meeting, that my anniversary was coming up. I took a minute to think what she was referring to, and then I realized, I’ve been blogging for almost a year, December 16th, 2008 was my first post. With almost 250 posts, I’ve had a great year of writing about and celebrating the creative spirit and am really grateful for all of you who take the time to read my posts.
And, in case you haven’t gone back to follow the comments for one of the previous blogs, the one where I made the plaid skirt from the handwoven skirt panel from Avoca Handweavers from Ireland, there was a string where I attempted to locate a source for the Burda Style Magazine, the current issue, for one of the blog commenters who loved the skirt pattern. I did an online search and didn’t find anything but how to order a subscription, which won’t help the commenter get the December issue. I called the US distributor for the publication, and they were completely sold out. But they sent me an email with two online retailers who sell individual issues, and have the November and December issues available. One of the retailers is Fashionista Fabrics and the other is Sew Baby. I love this magazine, and I’ve been subscribing for more than 10 years. Each issue contains over 60 patterns, and I love the style and engineering of the garments. The directions are scanty, one needs to know how to sew, and the pattern pieces have to be traced off of a large sheet of paper that looks like a road map from hell, but once you get use to it, the patterns are always at your fingertips and just leafing through each of the monthly issues gives me tons of ideas and possibilities.
And, on a final note, I caught the first episode of Bravo TV’s newest launch for a fashion design reality TV show, and I actually enjoyed it. Called Launch my Line, it involves fashion designer wannabees who are already known in another field, and they are paired with designer/experts, who can actually sew, and there was some exciting stuff. So, until the next season of Project Runway starts in January, this is a nice early winter treat.
Did I cover everything???
It’s December 1st and you know what that means…
It’s holiday time! Time to decorate, time for making gifts, the annual Christmas missive (yeah, I actually write one of those…), and all festive thoughts aside, today is Day Without Art, an international program to mark AIDS Awareness Day. I logged on this morning, and my Google home page has all the blogs I follow, plus things like the MET artwork of the day, something from the vast archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today I logged on and there was nothing but a black rectangle. There was a note attached, “Today’s daily artwork will not appear. Day Without Art began on December 1, 1989, as part of a day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis”. It hasn’t escaped me that this is a perfect day to reflect that we still have a lot of work to do in the arts community for AIDS awareness, as we gear up for the spending/decorating/eating frenzy that marks the last month of the year.
On a brighter note, my daughter got with the holiday spirit immediately, she disappeared into the bathroom and came out decorated for the season!
And I started to play around with something I could make for small gifts for a few friends, I resurrected a technique I’ve written about in my Leftover’s Monograph, and climbed into my attic stash in the sky, and pulled out some circa 1986 scraps, and had a blast. The idea here is to take 1″ scraps (on grain, no need for bias), and twist them around piping cord, like a barber pole, and coil up the cord, stitching it together, round and round, with a triple step zig-zag.
I’ll let the photos do the explaining, now that I found out how to put in a caption!
Thanksgiving Adventures…
My husband and I, born of an era when music and art tried to make sense out of a senseless world, have always had a special fondness for a special Thanksgiving more than 40 years ago. You know the one, it happened at a restaurant, when a couple of well meaning dinner guests tried to help their friend Alice clean out the old church that housed the restaurant, and found to their dismay the dump was closed on Thanksgiving. It isn’t unusual for my husband to find some rock station on Thanksgiving day, play the 18 minute Arlo Guthrie musical feast and happily listen, singing along about the 8×10 color glossies and Group W bench. We’ve seen Arlo Guthrie perform in concert many times over the years, and even took the kids and attended the 40th anniversary tour of Alice’s Restaurant Massacre at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago.
So it was with great fondness that we started on our own Massacre, of the debris that has accumulated in our oversized two car garage that no car has parked in for the last four years. I remember the date well, I had to move my mother in law out of her apartment in Connecticut, and put her into a nursing home in my town in NJ, by myself, because my husband was working in India for 4 months. I brought her belongings by the truck load and stuck them in my garage. I eventually worked through all of her belongings, she died in 2006, but once I gave up my parking bay, I was never able to reclaim it.
Fast forward, we have quite the woodworking equipment in the garage, under so much debris it is impossible to actually use it. My daughter adores woodworking and is thrilled to discover a complete woodworking studio just within reach, but for a little cleaning….
So we set out to begin the messy task of cleaning out the trash and junk, and organizing the buckets of tools and bins, and of course, knowing the dump was closed on Thanksgiving, we waited until Friday. And the dump was still closed. So, my husband is out with the truck, dumping the worst of the recycling, and I am sitting in my studio where it is warm and happy, blogging. I think that’s a good deal.
I haven’t felt well for the last couple days, too much discussion of swine flu and an over active imagination makes me think I’m already infected, but the symptoms are vague, and I’m probably just fighting off a cold. I put away all the warping equipment, I’m finished winding white warps for dyeing, for now, and I’m really itching to just sit down and make something. Something for me. I am jealous of knitters who grab a ball of yarn and whip out something, the only equipment where I can do that easily is….
The Sewing Machine…
It has sat idle too long and I needed to keep my fingers moving and just make something. I subscribe to Burda World of Fashion Magazine, it comes monthly, (actually it is a holiday gift every year from my mom, that wonderful woman who taught me to sew), and I perused through the latest issue, and found a pattern for a simple skirt that had a bias fold over of cloth, and I looked up at the wool plaid skirt panels my husband brought me back from his trip to Ireland in 2008, and and an idea was born.
I blogged about these wool plaid panels from Avoca Handweavers, back in 
December of last year. It was one of my first blog posts.
So, I traced off the pattern, basted it together, tried it on, and cut out the fabric. By bedtime last night, I had the skirt mostly together, tried it on, needed to take it in a bit, course I’ll probably have to take it in a bit more over time, because, what was I thinking!… Making a skirt the day after Thanksgiving is pretty lame…
But that didn’t stop me. For insurance, I only basted the side seams together, and since this doesn’t have a zipper closing, taking it in is a breeze.
The skirt went together easily, and I remembered why of all the fiber techniques I do, I love sewing the best. Handweaving gets you cool cloth to sew, but the machine and I are the best of friends. I have a Janome 6600 Professional, which I absolutely adore, especially the quick basting stitch that bastes things together like hems, and pulls out in about 3 seconds. This machine also has a dual feed foot built in so matching plaids is also a breeze. And of course there is nothing like working with a gorgeous wool.
I got to the closure, which consists of three horizontal buttonholes in the waist band, which folds over itself, and secures with a couple of well placed buttons. I am a buttonhole snob. I admit it, ask anyone who has ever taken a class with me on Closures. I have this very pricey top of the line machine from Janome that I adore, but for this task, out came my dusty trusty little Kenmore, about 15 years old (coincidentally made by Janome as well), and because it is a short shank machine, my very old Greist buttonholer will fit on the shank, I drop the feed dogs, pop in the correct buttonhole cam, and watch it make gorgeous perfect buttonholes every time.
I’ve also gotten good at taking an extra step to make sure the buttonhole doesn’t look like a wound in the fabric. I shot a sequence of making a buttonhole with the Greist buttonholer attachment, so I’ll let the photos do the talking…
