Tag: Cello Lessons

Look at the Time…

Too many cool things happening and not nearly enough time…

I know, these are definitely first world problems. I recently had my cable service upgraded to fiber, and they kept asking all sorts of questions about my TV use, and frankly, I’m not even sure how to work the smart TV I have, and I really don’t care. There just aren’t enough hours…

Fall is a super busy time here, and there are all sorts of fibery happenings, I skipped the HGA Spinning and Weaving Week this year, and Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool. NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY! But I am signed up for the remote Weaving History Conference starting tomorrow, and running through Wednesday. (I plan to do lots and lots of handwork…)

I had to take a break watching the sessions for my natural dye class with Maiwa, NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY!

I took a break from watching the daily sessions for the Sketchbook Revival 2024, which was free to join in, but I’m enjoying the sessions, or at least I was, until I realized there are NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY! So I paid for the sessions so I could watch them later…

Tuesday night my inventory list is due with all the cool things I’m selling at the Jockey Hollow Weavers Guild show and sale which opens in a week and a half. So that’s been my 24/7 focus for the last two weeks, making stuff for the guild sale from all my leftover scraps. I pulled a bunch of scraps from my massive collection in the attic, and made kits of various ornaments…

Kits for zippered bags…

Greeting cards, and tote bags. Lots of tote bags. I’ve been sewing up a storm… And Mulder is very happy to help.

And lots of rabbits…

Meanwhile, it is end of the garden season. We have so far avoided a frost, but I’m watching carefully. I harvested the last of the basil, and made another five batches of pesto for the freezer.

I harvested another huge bowl of grape tomatoes, and oven dried another bunch for the freezer as well.

And those were marigolds in the other bowl. Those I dried in the oven and popped that bag in the freezer to use for dyeing at a later date.

And I’m trying to dry flat, all the flag iris leaves, which are great for making cordage. Apparently I’ve found that if you dry them flat, rotating them frequently, they will retain their green color. I tried on the floor between two large looms. Except Mulder thought it was a cool fort and gathered up all the leaves to make a nest…

I’ve had to go to plan B… outside in a protected area away from critters but still with good airflow…

Meanwhile, at the end of September, I took a weekend away, with the Native Plant Society of NJ, at their fall retreat at the Cape May Science Center. What a great weekend. I have to say that plant people, turns out, are as generous of spirit and non-competitive as weavers, I felt right at home. And I met a couple of people who recognized me, and shared their desire to get back into weaving, a great winter hobby when the gardens go to sleep.

We had a number of hikes, and one of the goals was to see monarchs on their last stop before heading to Mexico. Walking with plant people was just the coolest thing, because they see things I would have missed. They point out bugs, and birds, and invasives, like Porcelain Berry, which I’d never seen, cool plant but horribly destructive.

And I learned the technical name for caterpillar poop, “frass”. An important term to know.

And I learned that there are native praying mantis and there are non native ones. I probably saw the non native one in my garden. Below is the native one, as pointed out by someone way more knowledgeable than me…

There were such interesting textures everywhere I looked…

And this amazing shaped tree was probably from some invasive vine that was eventually removed…

A photo op at a preserve with the Nature Conservancy.

I finished the doubleweave sampler I transferred from my small table loom onto the floor loom, in record time. I’m still working on the fringe, but the sampler came out really well. Right from Jennifer Moore’s Doubleweave Book.

I pulled down another Structo and cut off what I’d started, and transferred the 8-shaft warp from it onto my floor loom. This structure is Deflected Doubleweave, in 8/2 Tencel. I had six yards on my little Structo. What the heck was I thinking…

And here it is, I’m weaving away, through a yard already. What a breeze using my hands and feet! Refer back to my last post to see how I truly feel about table looms… My guild is doing a swatch exchange this year in just this technique. I’ll be quite ahead of the game as the swatches aren’t due until June… The Draft is from page 205 of Marian Stubenitsky’s Double with a Twist.

And I continue to hang in the music world. We had a performance a couple weeks ago at the Montclair Public Library. I was playing bass recorder, and professional photographer Mike Peters grabbed a shot of me in action and some great photos got posted on the website for Montclair Early Music.

Photo Mike Peters

Meanwhile, I am really enjoying learning to play the cello. And I went shopping. It started with me needing a decent bow… And now I own a very decent bow, and a cello to go with it. And I graduated from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which is I understand a big deal in the Suzuki world of music lessons.

Did I mention there are NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY!

So for the next three days I’ll be watching the sessions at the Weaving History Conference and madly assembling the ornaments. I also cut out snowmen, and gingerbread men. Pictures to come…

There are NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY! Stay tuned…

True Confessions…

My life is so full of really fun stuff, gardening is winding down, the visuals are changing daily. New stuff is blooming, (hello goldenrod) and other plants are dying back, going to seed, and looking wretched (goodbye milkweed).

I’m taking a natural dye intensive through Maiwa, in Canada (remotely of course) and watching each module, carefully taking lots of notes, and starting to scour some of the yarns and fabrics in the kit.

I’m taking cello lessons. Yep, something I always wanted to learn, it is my most favorite sounding instrument of all. First draw of the bow string and I was hooked. I practice furiously every day, hoping the pads of my fingertips will soon harden up! The photo from the teacher is for me to try to replicate proper posture…

And in all of that, honestly, I miss weaving. I love and have always loved the gentle process of a shuttle going back and forth, feet and hands in a rhythm that makes my heart sing. That and the cello… Often I listen to one while doing the other.

So here is the true confessions part. I have 17 table looms, all with interesting stuff on them, and I HATE weaving on a table loom. Really. Please don’t write letters telling me all the advantages of having a table loom, I know what they are, that’s why I still have 17 of them, down from around 3 dozen. There is nothing better for teaching structure, portability, etc.

Before Covid changed the world and certainly my life, I was able to cart around an entire weaving studio in my car, and bring the world of weaving to the masses. I gave 12 of my sturdy little 4-shaft Structos to my weaving friend Anne Choi, who has a sheep farm and was excited to get them, and set up her own mobile weaving studio, concentrating in underserved areas that don’t have access to the joy of handweaving. She sent me these couple of images of my beloved Structos at the Newark Museum, here in NJ, this past weekend, another group of new weavers is born. Here is the link to her website.

So, what about me… Back when I was doing this regularly, with my daughter in tow (she is now an emergency vet tech, and has little time for weaving), I started to build a group of 4-8 shaft Structos, with all different structures, envisioning a follow-up round robin, where people could try things like Summer/Winter, Huck, Doubleweave, Deflected Doubleweave, Honeycomb, Rosepath, etc. I put 4-6 yards of fine yarn, cotton or Tencel, on these little Structos and got each of them started and there they sat. This photo is from October 2023, it hasn’t changed…

One of them, actually a Leclerc 10″ wide 4-shaft sample loom, with spools on the back, had a Huck Sampler in linen, the spools had come with the loom, from my mother-in-law, and I thought it would be perfect to use up all that linen. What was I thinking…

I had no idea how much linen was on this group of spools, so I finished the yard and a half sampler, and there was still plenty to go. I picked one pattern and figured, how much could there be? So, I wove… And wove… And wove… This went on for the last year. I will be honest, it was painful… I couldn’t believe that the end was nowhere in sight.

So determined to clear this little guy if it killed me, I finally last weekend wove until I saw the end of the warp, which on a loom like this with spools, is the paper tape end that tucks into the flange of the metal spool.

And there it is. 7 1/2 freaking yards. Of 10″ wide huck in fine linen. I could have done this in probably a couple sittings on a floor loom. Instead it took me months. Sigh…

I had needed one of the small looms for the group that went to the college for my retrospective. So back in January I decided to actually cut off a Doubleweave sampler I started, and rethread, and beam onto a floor loom. Desperate to weave something, anything, I sat down this week, and pulled out Jennifer Moore’s Doubleweave book, and started in again. Oh the joy of using my hands and feet. I only have two more units left on this sampler, and I’m loving every minute of it. I have the more challenging ones left, quilting in a pattern and doubleweave pick-up, but with my feet working as part of the team, I’m looking forward to this.

That said, I looked at that wall of Structos and thought, well damn, I’ll just take them one at a time, and dump them onto my little 8-shaft Tools of the Trade loom, and carry on. I’m actually excited. The planning is done (though I have to convert from a lift-plan to a treadling sequence, I have software for that), and once I dump onto my floor loom I can weave like the wind.

I was chatting about this brilliant decision of mine with a weaving friend, and as I took a sip of my tea, she blurted out, “Friends don’t let friends weave on a rigid heddle loom…” (Sorry, if you aren’t a weaver you won’t understand this comment) I spit my tea across the table! Them’s fighting words in the weaving community. Truth be told, I feel the same way, and again, please don’t send letters telling me the grand virtues and benefits of a rigid heddle loom, they have their place, much like my beloved Structos, but I have a dozen and a half table looms, all set up that are not fun to weave on. My blog, my opinion…

So I continue with my dye studies, and while I baby sit the pots for scouring and mordanting, I work on the quilt. It is all together, and I’m now starting on the 380-piece trumpet vine that meanders all throughout the quilt. This is something I really don’t want to finish, I’m having too much fun…

And, I looked at the calendar and realized I have exactly one month to make stuff for my guild sale. I still have lots of scraps left from my production years, though thankfully the pile is getting smaller. The pieced jacket I finally finished used up a nice amount. It will be for sale at the Jockey Hollow Weavers Show and Sale in Mendham NJ starting November 1.

I sold all those adorable bunnies I had last year, (blog post that shows the finished bunnies, scroll down…) and took the last of the mohair fabrics and scraps I had, and cut out four more. Mulder was doing his best to help.

So my days are full, garden for an hour, watch a module in the dye class for an hour, work in the dye studio for an hour, weave for an hour, do correspondence for an hour, practice cello for an hour, and fit in housework, processing a bucket full of tomatoes, basil for pesto (my freezer is filling up). Yes, I’m ridiculously busy, but having a blast, now that I am truly honest with myself and admitted I hate working on a table loom…

Stay tuned…