Bliss

The house is quiet.  It is morning.  My husband has gone off to work, my daughter is off to her second day of Junior year of HS, and my 19 year old son is asleep in the basement, no surprise there. There is nothing major on the calendar calling me to actually leave the studio.  For today, life seems almost normal.  Big exhale…

I have one more big push of a workshop to teach, I leave on the 20th to teach at Sievers Fiber School on Washington Island in Wisconsin.  I have to start printing handouts, and getting interfacing and pattern paper cut, and shipped ahead, but not today.  I have a lecture to give to the American Sewing Guild local chapter on Saturday, but not today.  Today, I’m going to try a repeat of my routine yesterday, which was simple, healing, and mind clearing.  I did some housework in the morning, 20 minutes of yoga, took care of business stuff, paperwork, emails, got in my blog, and then spent the day in the studio creating something.

Sidebar:  In November, the 14th and 15th to be exact, my guild, The Jockey Hollow Weavers, has its annual show and sale.  Timed to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season, it has been a hugely popular event, and the members of the guild spend all year producing items to sell, handwoven, knitted, crocheted, felted, whatever their specialty, it can be found at the sale.  And there are demos, and things to eat, it is a great weekend.  I have never put a single thing in the sale.

Bigger Sidebar: I sold my work in craft fairs for 10 years.  When I quit doing craft fairs, in 1989, I swore I’d never sell my work again.  That was 20 years ago.  I’ve raised two kids since then (my son was born in 1990, six weeks after my last craft fair), and lots has changed in my life.  But I have held steadfast to my rule.  That all changed last month when I was contacted by a woman who saw one of my pieces in the Small Expressions Exhibit in Grinnell Iowa, and wanted to buy the piece titled Survivor.  Since the gallery was not authorized to act as a selling agent for the work, she contacted me directly.  She bought my small postcard size work, the show ended this weekend, the work should be making its way home to me shortly, and I will forward the piece on to her as soon as I get it back.  This experience has made me realize that 1) I am hoarding my work and running out of room to store it and 2) others might want to share a bit of me and own something I do.

Since I mostly make complex garments from my handwoven cloth, and they are made to fit me, it makes it really hard, and very expensive to sell my garments which are largely one of a kind.  I’ve had pressure from teaching venues to develop smaller project like workshops and seminars, and I can see where all this is leading.

So here is a no pressure/no cost to me opportunity to put some of my work out there for sale, the absolute worst that can happen is I sell nothing.  But I will have forced myself to experiment with techniques, on a smaller scale, and potentially make seminars out of them, which is what I do best.  Think of the samples I’d have.  At the moment, I could root around in the archives and come up with a few things to put into the show, but I have some time in the studio, during the next six weeks, minus the trip to Wisconsin, to actually come up with some concrete ideas and small salable pieces.

Of course this means applying a deadline and pressure to myself.  I know the previous paragraph started with “So here is a no pressure opportunity…”, but pressure and deadlines are what I do best.  If there isn’t any pressure, then it goes to the bottom of the very substantial to-do list.  Since I work for myself, there is no boss plopping something on my desk telling me he or she needs it “yesterday”.  I do that very nicely to myself thank you very much.  I’m always asked how I get things done.  I set impossible deadlines and expectations, and kill myself trying to meet them.  The best part for me is when I actually accomplish what I’ve set out to do, and I get the most enormous sense of pride, in having met my impossible goals, that I’m spurred on for the next big impossible task I set for myself.

In January of 2008, I decided to enter all eight of the Convergence 2008 Tampa Bay exhibits.  There were categories I don’t usually play in, like basketry and functional textiles for the home, but I entered them anyway.  And I got work accepted to 6 of the eight shows.  But it wasn’t about the acceptance, it was about applying.  And this guild show and sale for me is not about actually selling work, though that would be nice, it is about having a couple dozen items to put into the show.

loomscarfSo, I’ve embarked on yet another impossible deadline, to create as close as I can, to one item to sell per day during any day I don’t have a major calendar event.  Yesterday was one of those kind of days.  So I put in my headphones, listened to the first few chapters of The Devil Wears Prada on my new iTouch, and I wove one scarf.  It helped that the loom was already set up, there are two more scarves to go on this warp.  But it is a start.  I love the warp here, it is inspired by a class I took with Barbara Herbster at the Jockey Hollow Weavers Guild last May.  The class was in Supplemental Warp, and after I finished the two scarves from the class, I rewarped the loom with whatever I had in the studio, and just had fun.

Today is another non calendar event day, though I do have to warp a small portable loom for an ongoing project for my other guild, Frances Irwin Handweavers.  We are suppose to set up the loom and bring it with us to the meetings to try a series of rug techniques at each meeting during the fall.  That should only take an hour or two, it is a small 4 shaft table loom, and the rest of the day, I get to create.  Stay tuned…

Memories

On Sunday we made the laborious 3+ hour trek to Maryland, just off the Baltimore Beltway, to my mom’s house, where she is now living with her husband of a couple of years, a man she dated in High School.  A number of years after my dad died, my mom attended her high school reunion, and reconnected with someone she had dated, and six months later they were married.  They adore each other, and it is really sweet to see a romance bloom with two people who will turn 80 next year.

There was a family picnic, for the holiday weekend, and I was glad to have made the trek, I was able to reconnect with some family members I don’t get to see too often, because of the distance.

In July, my mom sold the house she owned at the Jersey shore, it was getting to be too much for her to keep up both houses, especially knowing what kind of superb housekeeper she is.  They don’t make ’em like that anymore!  Back in April, I met my sisters at the shore house, for one last fling knowing mom had just listed the house, and in spite of the current financial markets, knowing it would more than likely sell quickly, it was in move in condition.  And of course the house did.  Anyway, my mom had begun back in April, divesting the house of all its debris, in my mom’s case it was well dusted and carefully preserved debris, but never-the-less, it was debris from the past, and I was dreading having to bring some of it back to my already overstuffed dwelling.  I blogged about what I did bring home that April weekend.

On Sunday, my mom had her usual shopping bag of stuff, waiting for each of her three girls, these bags could have anything from books she is passing along, to cast off yarn or fabric, coupons, packaged food, or articles I should see or read about.  Always something of interest, I look forward to seeing what my mom has collected for me.  I was blown away by the bag she had for me this weekend.

My mom was always into needlework, as any 1950’s well trained housewife would be.  quiltAnd of course she was a fabulous dressmaker/tailor.  I’ve blogged about our matching dresses, and my tailoring lessons.  (At least I think I have…)  Mom pulled out of the bag my first comforter, which I clearly remember, but not as something that was made for me, but for something that covered my little sister, who was five years younger.  I always loved it, one of those comfort images from childhood, and I was thrilled to see it had been preserved, and cleaned, and the needlework had held up through three children, and it was going home with me.  The quilted cotton was smooth, well worn, and the colors just as bright as the day she embroidered it.  Gotta love that DMC cotton!

I nearly fainted when she then pulled from the bag, my first book. book I remember reading it to my little sister, but hadn’t remembered it as being mine, until I looked through it and a flood of recognition of  images and colors, and  memories came flying back into my head.

Again, mom had carefully soaked the yellowing stains away, and the book was beautiful.  The edges were frayed, and well used, like any good book, but the images inside were bright, vibrant, and funny.

open_bookThis was a book about the alphabet.  I learned my alphabet by reading and associating images from this book.  I learned that things had names and that the names started with letters from the alphabet.  And I definitely had some favorites.

dollI think my most favorite was ‘D’ for Doll.  But I never looked at it that way.  I remember pretty quickly figuring out that ‘D’ was also for Daryl.  So I always thought this was an image of me!  I was so cute…  I might have even had a dress like that…  And of course I was blonde.

My poor middle sister on the other hand, had dark hair, and her name was Marta.  I clearly remember not liking this image, and being really glad my name didn’t start with ‘M’.  monkeyThere was something really creepy about this organ grinder monkey begging for money.  I always thought the orange ruffle was odd.  This was probably the beginning of my fashion sense!

Not to be outdone, there was another fashion forward creature, ‘O’ for Ostrich.  This colorful thing even had mismatched shoes. (Which I never really noticed until now, probably something to do with shadowing, but they really don’t match!)

ostrichAnd of course, there were the images which I’m sure started my love for fiber.  There was ‘L’ for lamb, and my other favorite, ‘Y’ for yarn!

yarnAnd I clearly remember loving the colors on the ‘K’ for kite!

kiteI spent hours learning my colors, and then teaching them to my sisters, from all the colorful bows on the kite tail.

This was such a beautiful treat, to have this book.  My mom said it was for my first grandchild.  No offense, but my first grandchild isn’t touching this book.  I love this book, and I’m glad to have it back.  I’m being selfish and keeping it for myself.

Today is Tuesday, school started today.  My daughter dyed her hair purple for the occasion.  She matches her tie-dyed t-shirt.  She ran off for the bus with the same enthusiasm I remembered as a kid when the first day of school would roll around.  I really loved school, and there is a part of me that wishes I were back in the classroom.  But for today, I have my first book, that taught me the alphabet, and showed me yarn, and gave me a sense of what not to do in fashion.