Daryl's Blog – Page 171 – The World from a Weaver's point of view!

Sunday the First

I can’t believe it is March already. Unfortunately, it feels like January. At least in the north east. We have a snow storm on the way, up to 12″, depending on what forecast you listen to. This is making me very nervous. I know what Newark airport is like the day after a snow storm, and I am flying to California on Tuesday. If I miss my connection in Houston, I am most likely going to miss the start of the conference and my class. But my brain is famous for running amok with just a little bit of information. It makes me really good at what I do, but miserable to live with… 🙂

So, I am in overtime drive here, trying to calm my frayed nerves, remembering this is all out of my control, and that what will be will be, and that it always works out. Weavers are really flexible, and know how to get out of difficult tangled messes!

The show last night was a lot of fun. We attended the musical Footloose at a local private school, this is the show where I altered 33 dresses for the production. Back in early February I was asked to so some alterations and dressmaking, and I did have a lot of fun with it, but now that I’ve seen the show I have an interesting perspective here. The dance scene is the final scene in Footloose. Most of the dresses I altered were for that scene. The scene was maybe two-three minutes long, tops. The entire ensemble was on stage, so many of the dresses were in the back row, and couldn’t even be seen. I have to wonder if all the work I did was really necessary for two minutes of time on stage. That’s the funny thing with costuming. Always weighing, how long will this actually be seen, versus the cost of the alteration and will it even be noticed. I was sort of sad the cast wouldn’t stand still long enough for me to inspect all my hard work! But of course, it wasn’t about me and the alterations. The girls looked great, colorful, and much more current than some of the original dated dresses. The show was fun, and I enjoyed watching the kids sing their hearts out.

Today I spent updating my laptop in preparation for the trip, that meant 13 Windows updates, and virus definitions updates, and 329 emails off the server, and moving over all the updated presentations, and realizing I didn’t have Photoshop Elements 6 in the laptop, only version 4, I had to install that as well. I also backed up my Palm organizer, and other critical things along with the access codes to my blog.

This afternoon I had a real treat, I headed over to the local County College, the one where my son is a theatre major. They were having a retrospective weekend of their 40 years in the arts, and Friday night we attended an overview of the entire fine and performing art department, theatre, gallery exhibits, dance, and some beautiful music. This afternoon was a two hour Dance retrospective, some really terrific original modern dances, some award winning, and all of it current, thoughtful, colorful, and even humorous. It was a wonderfully spent $15. I think if I had unlimited funds and nothing else to do with my life, I’d attend the theatre daily, all sorts of things, living in the NYC area, we have access to so much it can be overwhelming. Montclair State University has a fabulous new performing arts theatre, it is 7 miles from my house, and I could attend some event weekly and not break the bank. And there is some fresh new original work being seen at some of these colleges and universities. So little time, so much to see…

Well, there is nothing to do now but ride out the storm, pack tomorrow, and hope I get out of Dodge on Tuesday! My intent is to blog while I am on the road. Since I haven’t done it before, and we are trying to locate my travel camera which mysteriously disappeared off my desk (could either of my two teenagers have anything to do with its disappearance?), I can’t guarantee there will be posts from sunny southern California, but I’m going to try. Speaking of ‘sunny’, Continental sent me my trip notes, and it isnt’ so warm there, in the high 50’s and low 60’s. I think I need to change what I was planning to bring for clothing…

The Workshop

What a fun day. I loaded my four huge tote bags of stuff into the car, along with my trusty sewing machine, and off I went, tea mug in hand, to the workshop with Marie Ozmon, sponsored by the Jockey Hollow Weavers. Marie has a very varied background, but loves to manipulate fabric into constructions and wall pieces, playing with color, crocheting fabric strips, cutting apart layers, and generally having a great time with a needle and thread. It was so great to just sit all day with my weaving buddies, playing with our sewing machines, and diving through piles of stash. It doesn’t get any better than that. I had terrific fun with my machine, switching feet, playing with stitches, trying to see what it can do, and I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

workshop sampler We basically started with four layers of fabric, stitching them together in a random way, and slicing through the layers to reveal the underneath, manipulating them, folding them, adding embellishments, and generally entertaining ourselves. This gives me a terrific jumping off point for that illusive project 4 I have been mulling over in the back of my mind. I think I posted that project back in December, but may have come up with a starting place for where to take all those leftovers and pieces of wonderful fibers. But that will have to wait until I finish the Arctic Sky jacket, and my California conference.

My son is picking up Chinese food, and we will be leaving in about an hour for the show Footloose, that’s the production where I altered the 27 dresses which turned into 33… You can read about that adventure in the blog Help Wanted and SuperBowl Sunday…

A winter storm is due in tonight through tomorrow. I am so done with winter. California, here I come…

Lions and Tigers and Bills, Oh My!

I went to log onto my computer this morning, and some very weird stuff started to happen. The screen sort of froze up in the half booted up stage, not a good thing. Alt + Ctrl + Delete wouldn’t work, and I will say, I had a moment of complete panic.

Sidebar: I am married to an absolutely brilliant man. He makes computer geeks look stupid. To watch him work, trying to debug, find the problem, and craft a solution is to watch an absolute artist in technology. When my husband isn’t traveling the world as a systems analyst, he usually works from home. That would be down the hall.

The computer gods live in fear of my husband. And I say this with humor, but it is a long standing joke in our household (with a computer system in almost every room), that when something goes wrong, my husband need only come and stand in the doorway, and all will instantly correct itself. I understand this, I have the same rapport with the sewing machine gods. We have a mutual understanding. In a class, a student will be struggling with a machine, and usually I’ve only to sit down and all will work properly. But I DON’T have that rapport with the computer gods.

Fortunately my husband was working from home today, and I wandered down the hall, trying to hide the complete panic in my voice. I had shut everything down, and when he came in to the studio, and pushed the power button to boot everything up, all worked as it should. Go figure…. I hate when he does that, but I’d be completely lost if he couldn’t…

So, I got on with my morning, which was spent in front of the computer, paying bills, doing paperwork, balancing checkbooks, entering bookkeeping figures in Microsoft Money, and doing all those distasteful tasks that are critical to a smoothly running business and household, but I’d much rather have been weaving.

Once that task was completed, I started packing for a one day workshop I’m taking tomorrow at the Jockey Hollow Weavers Guild, with Marie Ozmon. First I should mention that a perk of belonging to the JHW, is a winter “Freebie” program, a one day program in late winter, for free, that gives you a little creative sunlight, something to get you out of your winter doldrums. Well this program is right up my alley. The title is Constructing Fabric Structure, Surface, and Texture.

So I pulled out some very large tote bags, and boy do I have a collection, between my years of conference attendance, and my husband, who has been on the local school board for more than 10 years, and attends the yearly school board convention, well, you haven’t seen tote bags until you’ve been to one of these conventions…

Anyway, I packed up some fabric, ribbons, beads, sewing supplies, my iron and ironing blanket, and my trusty Janome 6600 professional machine, along with a couple bolts of fusible interfacing, and lined up all the bags in the hall, along with my camera, which is why I don’t have a picture of this escapade…

Stay tuned…

More Loom Adventures

Well, my boxes have arrived safely in California, and I shipped my Big Sister piece to Kansas City. I always feel when my work is out traveling, that it is sort of like sending your children out into the world, they get to go places and see things without you. I have two pieces in Mississippi, one on the way to Missouri, and some inkle looms and lots of samples sitting in someone’s house in Southern California. Little bits of my self scattered like dandelion seeds…

Speaking of Inkle Looms…

inkle_warp I kept one of my baby Inklettes (by Ashford) behind, (which you can get from any dealer who sells Ashford Looms), because the warp on it was used up, and I needed to re-warp for the conference. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, (actually that is a terrible analogy, why would I want to kill any birds?) and put on the warp to make key fobs for my guild.

Sidebar: It is very common for a guild to get together and make small tokens of their talent, advertising the guild, for the “goody” bags you receive at the conferences. My guild chose this year, to send off to the MAFA conference (which I won’t be attending because I’ll be at the conference in Durango) small pieces woven on an inkle loom and made into keyrings. I volunteered to make 7, which is how many including fringe, you can make on one fully loaded baby Inklette. I adore this loom. It’s profile is so small it can fit in the bottom of that same conference tote, or even on the little fold down table on the plane. (I haven’t actually tried this, since I am too overloaded with computer and projector and all my clothes for a week, when I travel to teach, but my weaving buddy Sally, who travels all the time for work, usually has a bag full of little bands whenever she returns from a trip). I had given a workshop to my guild, Frances Irwin Handweavers, in inkle loom weaving, and everyone had such a blast, they are all now prolific ‘Inklers’, and always have a new pattern or some interesting pick-up design to share at every show and tell.

inkle_loom So here I am all warped up. I had some diversions today, like my Thursday Philosophy Club lunch, there were six of us in attendance, and lots of catching up to do. I also ran around buying more stuff for props, and of course a trip to my favorite shipper to package my piece for Kansas City.

Tonight I had a real treat. In preparation for the HS Musical, which is the first weekend in March, while I’m in California of course, the Boonton High School drama club held an open mike talent night. OMG! Who knew a bunch of high school kids could have so much talent, so much poise on the stage, and so much presence? I’m trying to remember back when I was in HS, the most talented kids in the school couldn’t compare to what I saw tonight on the stage. Even the teachers performed, there were dance numbers, a martial arts presetation, rap, rock, soul, Broadway tunes, and because the school is so culturally diverse, there were some beautiful songs in other languages, duets, and even a classically trained pianist. I was blown away. For a small town HS, this was one class A production.

If you want to learn about inkle weaving, it is a simple loom to learn to use, without much fuss. I sell a monograph on Inkle Weaving, but if you want a little free tutorial, go to Weavezine, the fall 2008 issue, and read the article my daughter wrote on weaving shoelaces on the inkle loom.

Following Directions

I remember when I was in grammer school, the first standardized tests were introduced, and we had to color in those little circles with the number two pencil. Couldn’t be an HB, had to be a number two. Following directions is the bain of my existence. I am a creative soul, and want to do it my way.

So of course, I’m in a field where I am constantly writing proposals, filling out applications, entering exhibitions, and everyone wants the information in a different format. Use to be I could pretty much anticipate what the general desired information would be, write it up in PDF format, and attach it to the application, but now many of the shows, and conferences are requesting electronic transmissions through something called Juried Art Service. The first time I set up my profile there it took me two days. Now that I have it, I still have to keep editing, and filling out all the little fields and boxes which don’t always match with what I’m trying to say. Makes me really long for those little circles and my trusty number two pencil.

measure fold hem So the good news is I finished the Big Sister piece. Once I cut it off the loom, I had to hem it into a perfect 18″ square, steaming, pressing and blocking the image so it would full up a bit, and the spaces would close up. There are very specific directions for this exhibit, the Members Show, “Surface Matters” at the Surface Design Conference in Kansas City in May. The prospectus is very detailed, so I carefully read, re-read, and think I have it all in order. There has to be a 1 1/2 inch rod pocket sewn on the back, a half inch from the top and side edges, and a label with my name and the name of the piece safety pinned in the back. I chose to hand sew it on. Hope that was OK. Now I have to go to Juried Art Services online and update my profile with the image of the piece, fill out the application online, pay the entry fee, and then print the application and include it with the shipped piece, which has to go out tomorrow.

I took my daughter to volleyball tonight, and sat for an hour and a half finishing up the handwork on the piece, which worked out great, and then I raced home, threw dinner together, tacos are a wonderful quick dinner, and then we hit the stores in search of stuff for props. My daughter is in the ensemble for the HS Musical, “A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum”. Sadly I’ll miss the entire show because of the California conference, but it has been fun watching my daughter, who with a roll of duct tape, can make anything, take on making all the props, including the bust of Domina, an ancient scroll and a giant rose bush. Tonight we had to come up with Roman coins in a bag, washers from Home Depot took care of that. And I had a little draw string bag I kept my glue sticks in, prop so off she ran with that. Next was large feather plumes she could make into a giant fan, the kind the slaves used to fan the royalty. That was a little more problematic and a lot more costly. Armed with the Michael’s 40% coupons, we picked up some white plumes, and a bamboo pole, put a white plastic hanger into the top of the pole after she cut off the hanger loop with a hack saw, and wired the plumes to the hanger in a fan shape. She just has to finish wrapping the base of the feathers with duct tape to secure them. I have to make a run to Party City tomorrow for Gladiator Sandals.

Off to finish cleaning my bathrooms, I accomplished a lot today, and I’m really looking forward to a good night’s sleep….