Pick-up Updates

single_diamond_graphsingle_diamondI teach a class on Inkle weaving, I love Inkle bands, first the loom is very portable, and second, the bands are so great on garments.  I used a complex inkle band with double rows of a 7 thread pick-up in the garment photographed for the blog.  Anyway, I’ll be teaching the class at the Southern California conference in the beginning of March, (see upcoming events on the right) and I’ve had on my to-do list to update the color  Inkle Weaving Monograph I sell to include a page of basic 5 thread pick-up designs for beginners to end the section on Pick-up.  So I photographed a band I’ve birds_eyebirds_eye_graphbeen working on, and created the 5 thread drafts for the designs, which took me most of the morning, updated the presentation, and created a PDF file as an addendum which can be accessed through my website .  So if you bought the monograph and would like the added page, or are just curious, click on PickUp, and you should access the page.

The rest of the day was spent working on the Dreamweaver Manual, I have a design for the website I’m working on, but not exactly sure how to execute it in Dreamweaver which is soooooo much information, which I’m following, but don’t have a clue how to do this yet.  But I’m only on chapter 4.  I’m learning CSS style sheets.  I long for the simplicity of HTML, even though it is very limiting.  I hit the bed exhausted last night, too late to blog, but my head swimming with all the exciting ideas and fun things that await, if only there were another 24 hours in one day…

Back to the Projects

So my usual Monday morning task is to dust one level of my house.  Since yesterday was a wash, with the guild meeting, and feeling lousy, and my daughters five hours of extra-curricular events, I’m lucky I had the 10 minutes to blog.  So I picked up the dust cloth and started dusting this morning, and the upstairs is much harder than the downstairs, because it has a) my husband’s office, and b) my studio.  As you can imagine, both rooms are a nightmare to dust.

fabricI moved the roll of fabric from what I originally described as Project 5, way back in the beginning of January  off of my loom to dust, moaning that it may be awhile before I get to my poor naked looms.  But I have fabric still to sew…  I returned the roll of fabric to the top of my loom castle, and then decided to actually move it to my cutting table.  The sari lining I had originally put with it in the January photo, was instantly replaced with one of the new ones my husband just brought back from India.  It is a gorgeous cyan blue, with little Jacquard motifs in gold metallic.  It is a better match, even though the original sari would have worked, the original sari competed with the lime green piece of felt I made with a friend on a whim.  I love the edge of the nuno felt piece, the irregular felted edge would be so amazing peeking out of a princess seamline like piping.  And I found three big buttons that I liked with the fabric as well.

patternSo I poured through my back issues of Burda, and found the pattern I think ties this all together, shawl collar, lightweight jacket, princess seams, welt pockets, cuffs, and I like the little belt in the back.  Oh, and it calls for three big buttons…   🙂

So I feel like I am embarking on a new relationship, whenever I finish a project, there is a mourning period, where I am actually depressed, I feel like a passionate relationship ended, that it is gone from my life.  It is all about the process for me, and when the project is done, it just hangs in the closet, or goes out for exhibit, but it is the passion of figuring it all out, laying awake at night, jumping out of bed to get through what I need to accomplish so I can dive into the latest solution.  You can probably tell this brought  me out of my slump…

There is so much going on in the studio, but I am slowly chipping away.  I finished the latest five alterations for the HS Musical production, which came in after I finished the 27 dresses.  And I got a rough outline for my architect sister’s website.  Just waiting on the final photos of all the home additions and renovations she designed, the befores and afters (which totally amaze me, I know what I can do with a piece of fabric, but to do that with a house? )  I am feeling a bit better today, thanks to my mom’s famous home remedy for stomach ailments, sip on honey and vinegar mixed in tepid water.  Works every time…

I got the work shipped out for Small Expressions, and generally got back into the swing of things.  My to do list is onto the second page, which is always scary, but I’m in a brighter mood, with a project to execute, and I’m actually beginning to feel human again after the stomach virus from the weekend.  And it is suppose to be 60 degrees tomorrow.  Can spring be far away?  There is less and less snow/ice remaining, and pretty soon, little shoots popping out of the ground!  And you know what that means….  Gardening season!

Monday

Yes, I’m still alive.  Thanks to all who emailed me and saw me at the guild meeting this morning, with good wishes hoping I was feeling better.  I’m still not completely myself, still a bit queasy in the stomach, and food not appealing (but the glazed pound cake at the meeting went down really well…), but I’m alive, and sort of working on about three cylinders.

I spent the day yesterday hunkered down, with manuals in hand, and huge amounts of files, it is hard to imagine but my sister is even more organized than I am, a pleasure to work with because she knows exactly what she wants and it is my job to execute.  She is an architect in the northern Maryland area, and is in need of a website.  And I am in need of income.  It is a perfect match.  Bless her, she has given me a deposit, and I’m off and running and outlined a site for her, which she enthusiastically approved, now we are down to hours of processing photos and building pages and links, but I’m enjoying learning how to use the Dreamweaver software, and the new Photoshop CS4, along with Bridge, and it was a good day to just sit quietly by the computer.  I did manage to get out around noon to join an early music recorder group for a rehearsal, I’m playing Alto.

My daytime guild, Frances Irwin Handweavers, met this morning, I just love this group.  The talent here is amazing.  One of our members gave a presentation on Turned Tacquetté, which is like a Summer/Winter on opposites but turned so only one shuttle is needed in the weft.  And of course, I do love the show and tell.  We have a couple prolific weavers who always have a bag full of stuff.  This is the guild who very kindly last month, pointed out the beach ball in the back of my dress (see blog from about a month ago…)  They were thrilled to see the resolution, and I showed the coat which received numerous accolades.  It is a pretty cool coat, and I am really proud of it.

daydreamThe hour trip home was tiring.  I’m still not myself, and I didn’t eat lunch because it just didn’t appeal to me.  And I got stuck in horrible traffic on Interstate 80, largely because it was the perfect day for road crews to be out there filling the crater size pot holes from the brutal winter.  So by the time I got into the driveway, I was ready for a nap.  But I didn’t bother to go inside the house.  I’ve done this before, and it is such a cool thing to do, at least I think so anyway.  (And you can’t do it in the summer!).  I reclined the seat in my car, which was warm and cozy, and dozed, with the sun streaming in the car, for at least a half hour.  It felt so wonderful.  I slowly woke, and this was the view I saw out the window. (And I just figured out how to use the camera in my cellphone!) This beautiful blue sky, with black leafless tree branches, gently swaying in the breeze, the occasional ribbon of clouds lazily drifting by.  I stared at it for maybe 20 minutes.  It was so restful and restorative.  Now I am ready to go to the HS, pick up my daughter from play rehearsal, and get her to her snow make up volleyball practice, (where I’ll continue on my knitting), and then on to trombone lessons.

And in the mail today were contracts for teaching at the John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC in January 2010.  I’ll have more on that once I finalized the details and sign the contracts.

Lost Day

There is a saying, something like, “Life is what happens when you are planning something else…”  I totally hate when I have an agenda (which is most times) and it gets derailed by something which I don’t expect.  Course I’m sure you are all rolling your eyes, you can’t do what I do, have two teens, and a traveling husband, and not expect that things will go wrong.  But still, I always outline what I expect from the day, what I want to accomplish, in those sleepy morning minutes while I listen to NPR as I wake up.  Well, forget this morning.  I woke about 1am with a horrid stomach virus, I won’t bore you with the graphic details, just know that the bathroom tile floor is cold at 1 am, and 1:30am, etc. and that I’m still doing laundry.  I haven’t been sick like that since, well, I can’t remember when.  And it came on so suddenly.  So, that was my night, and my morning, and I could hardly get out of bed I was so weak.

Unfortunately I had to go into NYC today.  I never got my work returned from the Economies of Scale Exhibit, and I needed one of the pieces to ship to Small Expressions to be in Mississippi on the 16th.  When I called the Phoenix Gallery, the woman told me that she is still looking to flag down the UPS driver, that to call him for a pick-up would mean an extra expense of $10.  Even though I prepaid the shipping, she said she wouldn’t send it out until she ran across the driver.  The Gallery is on the 9th floor of a Chelsea Highrise.  Its not like she could look out the window and see him on the street like we do in suburbia.  With the gallery closed on Sunday and Monday, my hopes of getting the work sent to me in time to turn it around and send it to Mississippi, were getting slim.  So I had no choice but to drive into Manhattan today and pick up the work.  My wonderful husband took pity on me, and actually offered to drive in for me, I decided that, though I felt terrible, I had largely stopped the stomach virus part, and would just sit in the car while he drove, run up to the 9th floor (I took the elevator) and retrieve my pieces while he waited in the car.  We were back in an hour and a half, successful, and then I went back to bed.

I got up around 2pm, had a little something to eat, chicken soup, and headed to the Academy to drop off the 27 dresses.  Most of the students had left when I got there, apparently practice hadn’t gone well, and the students were dismissed early, so I didn’t get to see if any of my redesigns worked, but they added another five garments to the pile and home I went.  I still feel lousy, achy and chilled, so I’m going to do what any self respecting person would do, I’m going to curl up in bed and watch the recorded Masterpiece Theatre episodes I missed.

Taking Care of Business

After some housework, I spent the day studying the Adobe Dreamweaver manual, trying to learn this new web design software.  I took on the job of web master of the Frances Irwin Guild’s website, and I want to do a new presentation/seminar on web design to coordinate with my Photographing Your Work seminar.  I believe I am debuting the Web Design seminar at the Michigan Conference in August.

Speaking of Conferences…

This is the summer of the regional conferences, if there is one close enough to you, consider attending, great opportunities to exhibit, to learn, to serve, to benefit from hanging around a group of really creative people.  I’m sad I can’t attend my own regional conference, because the one in Colorado is the same weekend, and I am scheduled to teach there.  I’m going to try to add the list of conferences where I’m teaching in the Upcoming Events Widget on the side bar, meanwhile here is a brief outline…

June 22-27, 2009 Midwest Weavers Conference, Grinnell, Iowa http://www.heartland2009.org

July 3-6, 2009 Peters Valley Craft Center, Layton, NJ http://www.petersvalley.org

July 10-12, 2009 New England Weavers Seminar Northhampton, MA http://www.newenglandweaversseminar.com

July 30-August 2, 2009 Intermountain Weavers Conference, Durango, CO http://www.intermountainweavers.org/

August 4-9, 2009, Michigan League of Handweaver’s Conference 2009, Holland, MI http://2009workshopsandconference.mlhguild.org/

August 22-30, 2009 Felters’ Fling, Williamsburg, MA http://www.blacksheepdesigns.com

September 20-25, 2009 Sievers School of Fiber Arts, Washington, Island, WI http://www.sieversschool.com

In the meantime, you can visit my website to see what I’m teaching (I’m working on updating that as well) or visit each venue to see their complete offerings.

If you are looking for an early fall retreat, a trip to Sievers School of Fiber Arts in Wisconsin is about the best you will find.  Once you are on Washington Island, you can only leave by ferry, you forget life, and dive in head first, and it is one of those experiences that will bring you back every year.  It is the only place I offer a full five day garment construction workshop, first time students will make my classic jacket, but returning students (and there are quite a few) can bring their own patterns and agenda and really immerse themselves into the sewing experience.  This is open to all, not just handweavers.  Check out the other course offerings as well, they start classes in mid June, and run through mid October.

And finally, a BIG call for help!  I alluded to the fact in my blog from Thursday, that I was voted Vice President in charge of programming for the Jockey Hollow Guild for 2009-10.  Sharp reader Nancy noticed it right away and commented, she had the distinguished job of program coordinator for the Ann Arbor Guild, and did a fabulous job coordinating my trip there last fall.  As a matter of fact, over the years I have been in awe of how organized and enthusiastic all the program chair persons have been in coordinating my workshops for their guilds over the past 15 years or so I have been teaching and traveling.  So it is with great trepidation that I attempt to follow in their footsteps, and come up with programs and workshops for my guild.  Any ideas are really really really appreciated.  What was one of your favorite programs?  I’m especially looking for ones that can be done locally with guild members.  Is there a site or blog where guilds can share this sort of information, like, “Wow, we just had the most interesting program!”  Sounds like a job for HGA…  For now, feel free to click on the comments section and share your memorable programs.  (Am I cheating by asking for help?)