Montclair Early Music – Daryl's Blog

My world is whole again…

I will admit that I struggle with this whole season. And it is sad and heartwarming at the same time, the amount of people who seem to feel the same way. Expectations, family dynamics, travel, too much food, or not enough, all of it can consume you and leave you empty and depressed.

The woman behind me in line at the post office asked me in a friendly conversation starting way, if I was all ready for Christmas. I didn’t know her, a stranger, but she was eager to be friendly and just picked a way of striking up a conversation. I don’t think she was completely prepared for my answer, which was basically, “no”. I explained to her that I really had no plans for the holidays, as I had a son who was deployed, and hoped he would come home in time, but even if he didn’t, December 25th wasn’t some magical date where everything would come together. I had no plans, because there was no one to plan with.

The end of the year holiday season has always annoyed me from a business standpoint, it is largely just inconvenient, things are closed, places are overwhelmingly busy, schedules like deliveries are off, and I’m completely sick of emails begging for money, telling me how wonderful their products are for gift giving, “last chance on our special offer”, etc. I think January is really my favorite month because it is just normal. No holiday anything. Just 31 days of silence.

I don’t want to be a scrooge, yet this time of year really is, for me, magical, but not in the way that everyone seems to celebrate. My expectations are that it is cold, the gardens are asleep, the Winter Solstice is reassuring in that the light will come again, and that this is the season of generosity, of music, of gatherings with friends and strangers, and this is the season of one of the reasons for weaving. Towels. Lots and lots of towels. Even though my family is begging me to stop giving them towels, because their drawers are full, there are lots of others who have never gotten a towel, and are absolutely delighted with such a useful pretty gift.

So I finished up the 9 towels on the warp, I’ve already given out a few, and decided that they were so much fun to weave, I should just tie on another warp.

I looked at my vast stash of 8/2 cotton and randomly picked an icy warp.

I wound another 10 yards…

Tied it into the existing warp,

Beamed it onto the warp beam,

And started to weave. I’m sure the warp would be even prettier with a dark weft, but I have a couple of cones of an icy gray, and decided that rather than buy more cotton to have a dark weft, I’d just use what I have. Head start on next year, or hostess gifts when I need them.

I finished up the Deflected Double Weave Warp I had transferred to my floor loom from one of my Structos. I grabbed another one of the Structos and started offloading that warp onto my small floor loom.

This one was set up in a four-shaft twill sampler, or gamp, and once it was on the floor loom, weaving it off was a breeze. There was only three yards of warp on this, so I’m just weaving it as a scarf, but it may turn into zip bags, or I don’t know, I don’t have to monetize everything…

My guild’s final meeting of the year is usually some simple project, a make it take it kind of thing, and this year’s project was actually a bit magical. We created little weavings in the round, around a ring covered in cotton.

I took what was leftover from the guild sale, what didn’t sell of mine, and gave it to the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ for their small gift shop in the lobby of the Kirby Theatre at Drew University in Madison. I did this last year, and they ended up selling $500 worth of my items, and of course they get to keep all the money; my gift to them and the fantastic productions they do. There was a table of handmade items, some were mine, and some were by the ShakesPurls, a knitting group that supports the Theatre.

They had a large tree in the lobby filled with my ornaments.

They had a greeting card rack, and as I spun it around, I found all of my cards.

This is the season of music. And I’m really enjoying all the opportunities to play, dress up, rehearse, and I’m really really loving playing the cello. I practice at least an hour a day. We had both our holiday concerts with Montclair Early Music, many of you asked to see my costume, made up largely from just stuff in my closet I altered for effect.

I was hanging in the sewing studio, and started pulling out my more opulent fabrics that might work up into more costumes for the coming year. The public seems to love when we all come out in our medieval garb.

I have one more performance, this one tomorrow, in a local memory care facility. It is a great privilege to be able to take the gift of music to strangers, and maybe Christmas Carols might spark a bit of memory in those who have lost that ability. I love the music of the season, in all of its forms, though I will be glad to put away the holiday music and pull out new things to learn. We played Carol of the Bells at our winter concert a couple of weeks ago, which is Ukrainian, and after the concert, a couple of newly relocated Ukrainian families came up to the music director, with tears in their eyes, saying how much it meant to them to hear a bit of their homeland in this miserable war. Music has that power.

This time of year is for tying up loose ends, I love finishing up projects, and moving onto new challenges, and the greatest challenge I have ever taken on, was making this appliquéd cat quilt for my mom, from a Maggie Walker kit she bought in the 90’s. This was a really tough year for me, for many many reasons, and this quilt marked time, each month gone as I finished another block.

All of the last 100 pieces of the trumpet vine that runs through the central part of the quilt have been cut out, and today have been pressed under and ready to stitch on. I store them 10 at a time in sushi trays, stacked in order.

This is where the quilt is at this point, I’m seeing the end of an incredible project. I will miss it.

And the most important thing I want to share with all of you, is that he is home. My sister and her husband came with me yesterday to the National Guard Armory just outside of Princeton, and my son, who has spent the better part of this past year in Syria, is finally home. My heart is whole again. It will be a long road of reintegration for all of the returning troops, all he wanted last night was to go home to his apartment, with his beloved jeep that I kept repaired and running for him, and sit on his own couch with real pizza and a beer (no alcohol in Syria or any Islamic country). We brought him back to my house, where he grabbed his keys, hugged me goodbye, and took off to begin to pick up his life where he left off.

I’ll go and visit my mom who is 93, next weekend, and show her how far I’ve come on her quilt. That I still have my mom, and that she is still that amazing woman who raised me, is the biggest blessing of all.

Enjoy the magic of the season, the return to the light, the sleeping gardens, the opportunity to give gifts of music, things made from the hands, and just plain old friendship. Enjoy the music of the season, whether you play an instrument or not. And if you don’t, why not? I’m playing the piano again, glad I still kept the one I bought 40 years ago. And I play recorders, and now the cello. And there are always people to play with. You don’t have to be very good.

And I’m enjoying planning out my next year, what new adventures will I take on, what will my garden look like when everything wakes up? The night of the solstice it snowed about 4 inches. Everything is clean and white, and fresh.

Stay tuned…

And so starts the holiday season…

…with a vengeance! Thanksgiving is late this year, so hasn’t happened as of this writing. But the last few weeks have been horrifically busy, because, ’tis the season.

It is the season for our annual guild show and sale. I worked furiously making stuff from leftover scraps, for the sale, like ornaments…

Like zip bags…

And I loaded up the car, helped set up the sale, spent an exhausting three days working the floor, and selling my little heart out. I sold quite a bit of work, which made me happy.

Most of the unsold work was just delivered to the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, for them to add to their little gift shoppe in the lobby of the Kirby Theatre for the final show of the year. ‘Tis the season!

The final show is A Christmas Carol, and because I volunteer as a stitcher in the costume shop, it has been all hands on deck. I always thought my least favorite show to help with costume alterations was Macbeth. Lots of black, lots of leather, and garments that weight 75 pounds. The current production is just as challenging. Many of the garments for this show have to be rigged for quick release, for costume changes that have to occur in about 15 seconds. There are only 8 actors in this version of A Christmas Carol. That means fitted corseted jackets have to be attached to full skirts, and full petticoat attached to that. With a lapped separating zipper down the back, where some of the layers were 1/2″ thick. We have industrial machines there at the costume shop, but nothing would go through this except the costume shop’s manager’s personal $199 11 year old Singer from Walmart. Try putting in a lapped zipper after the fact in a garment that weights as much as I do… Go figure… The things I am learning… I’ll go in one more day on Tuesday, they pack out on Wednesday and go into tech this weekend. Show opens December 4th. ‘Tis the season!

This is the season of harvesting, and I had a friend collect a huge bucket of black walnut hulls. I don’t have a garage to put them in, since that is now the weaving studio, and with the animals always getting into something, I don’t dare just put them in my studio. So I left them in front of the garage bay under the overhang, to protect them, and the squirrels had an absolute field day. There were crushed walnut hulls all over the driveway. Somebody was happy! I covered the bucket and now they are all moldy. Sigh… Maybe next year my life won’t be so crazy and I can soak them immediately and use them as a dye promptly.

It has been a beautiful fall season, especially in my yard with all the wonderful native plants and the colors that they are turning, much subtler than all the invasives on my property, but beautiful in their own way. However, this is NJ. And though it flooded four times in the last year, we have been under extreme drought conditions for the last couple of months. No rain. None. Which means no fire pits, no fireworks, nothing that could spark dry leaves and create a conflagration. Nevertheless, thousands of acres have burned over the last couple weeks, which is pretty scary in this small and overcrowded state. I became obsessed with watching the weather apps on my phone, hourly, praying for some kind of precipitation, watering where I thought I had no other option, but understanding that our reservoirs were half empty, and conservation was important. So it was with extreme joy that over the last few days, we received slow and steady precipitation, that amounted to nearly 4″ of rain. Everything looks wet and healthy.

I grabbed a photo of some of the color outside my studio window.

And with the all the rain, I was inspired to wind a warp for dishtowels, because, IT IS THE END OF NOVEMBER AND I DON’T HAVE MY HOLIDAY GIFT DISHTOWELS ON THE LOOM! I grabbed the draft from last year’s 4-shaft combination structure towels, based on this design from my eShop. I just edited the colors in my weaving software, and started winding.

I put 10 yards of 8/2 cotton. I have a lot of cotton. Within two days I was weaving… I’m calling this run Autumn Rain.

With a lot of help from Mulder. NOT!

I’m about three yards in so far. I try to do about a yard at a sitting. ‘Tis the season for dishtowels!

And for anyone who plays music, this really is the season. I played recorders at a Viking festival last weekend, and our annual holiday concert is this Sunday in Montclair. I play bass recorder, with Montclair Early Music, and we have had a number of opportunities to share our music with the public. Which means lots of practice and lots of rehearsals. And a couple of us are planning to take a quartet to a memory care facility in my county to play Christmas music. More rehearsals and practicing. ‘Tis the season!

And of course, thrown in there was the election. I don’t ever talk about politics in my blog, or my Facebook page. Most of you who know me know where I stand politically. And in the arts, most of us lean in the same direction, since we are such a diverse community. That said, I pray for some stability and kindness, and willingness to have frank discussions, and embracing those who think differently than I do. I’ve reached out to talk with those who voted differently than I did. And there is always more than one perspective, for any situation. I miss my late husband terribly, because he was the absolute best at seeing all sides of a situation and acting accordingly. And though election season is over for now, the 2025 gubernatorial primary season for NJ has already started, and there are about a dozen good candidates up for the position of NJ Governor. I’ve tried to limit my news exposure at this point. Because even though, ’tis the season, I don’t have the stomach for it right now.

And I wait. By the phone. For my son’s return from his deployment in Syria. I know the process has started for his return, but the military never gives details about troop movement, so I have no information, except that I’ll eventually get a text from him telling me he is on US soil. Soon…

And so dear readers, I’ll spend Thursday quietly with a friend, and then back to work rehearsing, weaving, and all the other things that need to be done in this season of darkness. I love the waning afternoon light through the trees, minus their leaves. I love the blowing leaves along the streets and in my yard. I left them in the beds this year, because apparently that’s the thing to do. Like covering up everything with a blanket for the winter. It rained, and I have towels on the loom, and my son will be home soon. All is well.

Stay tuned…

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.

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…

Nevertheless, They Persisted…

I’m learning how to say no, it is coming quite easily at this point in my life, but people don’t want to hear it… Just saying… They can be persistent, these people…

I’ll start with the biggest thing first. My retrospective at County College of Morris, probably one of the best experiences of my lifetime, came down yesterday. It was an amazing 6 month run, I’m so very very grateful for the college that sponsored this event, for the gallery director who was the most amazing professional I’ve ever worked with, and for all supporters that came from near and far, some flying in from California, St. Louis, Florida, and some driving in from upstate New York, Virginia, and all points in between. Even friends from High School made the couple hour trek from southern NJ. I got a lot of free lunches out of it! The overwhelming positive response made me feel like my life and my work (because they are intertwined) made a difference. If you missed the show, and want to watch the documentary we put together, click here.

But all good things come to an end, and yesterday, helped by a fellow guild member, we had the show completely disassembled, and loaded for the first run home. I held onto about 35 of the 41 dressforms I purchased for the show, various venues requested some for their own exhibit spaces. My guild, the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Peters Valley, and actually, the Handweaving Museum in Clayton, NY.

So one of the persistent themes throughout this exhibit, was the amount of people who encouraged me, or sometimes demanded of me that I take this show on the road. I couldn’t make them understand that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a beautiful swan song to an amazing career, but I am done. No more… No more exhibiting, no more teaching on the road, no more. Nevertheless they persisted…

As it turns out, one of the people who attended the exhibit, who drove a long way, had a connection to the Handweaving Museum, part of the Thousand Island Arts Center, up on the St. Lawrence River in NY. I know of the museum, haven’t visited myself, but they put on an amazing conference on weaving history, which has been remotely accessed the last couple of years. I’ve already signed up for this October.

One thing led to another, and emails started flying back and forth, and there is a very positive possibility, that the museum will take part or all of my collection of work. It is still in the early stages, and they are building a new facility to house their ever growing collection, but knowing that my work can live on after me, in a way that people can handle the pieces, research the pieces, and learn from them, makes me really really happy. So fingers crossed, I’m hoping within a couple of years, this large collection of handwoven garments and wall pieces will find a permanent home. Plus they want 10 dressforms…

Meanwhile, three carloads of stuff is now in my living room. Or was until late last night.

I managed to haul all of the dressforms, and all of the assorted containers and bags up to the middle guest room, and even one of the very very large suitcases, which I used for years teaching, dragging 170 pounds of luggage around the country. I never thought I’d need these suitcases again, but I dug them out of the attic Thursday night. I emptied one of them this morning. There are still five in the living room. One a day?

Meanwhile, the largest one, finally said enough. As I wheeled it from the car up the steps, the wheels broke apart, and left a trail. It has been an old faithful friend, and now it can truly retire…

I’ve talked ad nauseum about my gardens, which I had planted this spring. I’m completely unfamiliar with all the native perennials, since my property largely consisted of Japanese Barberry and Burning Bush. So it is with joy and discovery that I watch things fill in each day, create a grouping and bloom. The diversity of bugs and pollinators has been remarkable. I even think I caught sight of a monarch butterfly at one point. (There is a lot of milkweed on the property). I got a decent closeup of a swallowtail on the Joe Pye Weed. I have a lot of Joe Pye…

The gardens are ever changing, and the restructuring of the footprint, to accommodate intense rainfall that comes pouring off the mountain, worked so amazingly well, that the last two storms which dumped a lot of water, were uneventful as far as the plantings go. The brown spots in the lawn are the dogs’ potty area. They run down the steps and just squat… Because they are dogs… But the lawn is mostly clover and Creeping Charlie, which is fine with me…

And my ponds are full of fish, the one by the deck has a bunch of small koi in it, and they are quite hilarious to watch, full of personality.

The pond by the fence, which we affectionately call “Kevin’s Pond” has some gorgeous bright orange gold fish. They look forward to the handful of food I toss in every morning.

And I have a water feature which I put in after my husband died, it sits on what use to be his favorite spot in the yard. There is always some bird or insect taking advantage of the bubbling flow.

And with all of that, I continue to sign up for classes in all the things I want to learn how to do better. My sister invited me to a class her friend was giving on Flower Pounding. That is pounding flowers onto a treated cloth. I took a workshop in this last fall I believe it was, and though it was fun and the results were beautiful, everything washed out, and left me with a dull dirty looking dishtowel. The second class I took, yielded nothing. No one in the class got a single transfer of image.

This teacher did her homework, and she not only pretreated both the cellulose pounding cloth and the base with aluminum acetate, and I understand a calcium carbonate dip, which I have to investigate further, all of her students created amazing images with her array of flowers from her garden.

I will say I’m afraid to wash my beautiful linen/rayon table runner. But I did wash the pounding cloth, figuring I’d use it again for the same purpose, and the colors are still bright and strong, and I’m using it for a dishtowel in my studio.

And I’ve already talked about my struggles with eco printing. I want to learn how to do this, and why things work, and the chemistry behind it, and yes, I’ve taken multiple classes in this technique but have never been happy with the results. Much of eco printing now involves natural dyes, which is a whole ‘nother field of study, and the use of iron and color blankets. (I’ve signed up for a 10 week natural dye class at Maiwa in Canada, which starts in September, obviously remote) The last class I took specifically in eco printing, again, left me with more questions than answers, and a lot of mediocre to poor results.

I signed up to take another eco printing class with Kathy Hays, a Florida artist, whom I’ve studied with before years ago, and was happy enough with the results to keep trying. She has developed a number of different classes now, available through Gumroad, and I signed up for the one called Art Scarves. It covers a lot of the natural dyeing aspect and goes into using color blankets.

She starts you with just using iron blankets and learning how to pre or post mordant. I tried some of the leaves on my property, ones that aren’t on anybody’s list of known printers, because what the heck. She also encourages you to just make samples… Like in weaving. Making samples… Great way to learn. And it doesn’t have to be anything… Even though my friends are quite persistent that they would make lovely scarves and I could sell them… No, just no. I want to learn to do this, not make more stuff to sell. Sigh…

My favorite thing to dye with at the moment is my precious ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), a lovely native bush, that was actually growing on my property, who knew, the only native plant I had, covered by all sorts of undesirable things.

I’m learning how to make color blankets, in essence an unmordanted length of cotton which soaks up a concentrated dye, and then releases it onto the base fabric during steaming. I won’t say more than that, take the class if you want to learn… I’m really happy with the results I’m starting to get. The dye blankets used are from the left, osage orange with and without an iron sulfate pre dip, logwood, and lac (an insect), all on various types of silk from my stash.

Again, the ninebark makes really beautiful prints.

And of course, I’m moving right along on the appliquéd cat quilt. This is block 9, the center block. Once I finish the rest of this block, I can start putting all nine blocks together and then finish the blocks I couldn’t finish because paws and tails overlapped the neighboring blocks. Then a 380 piece crossvine (another native) is added and meanders through the entire quilt. This has been an immensely satisfying diversion this year, as I struggle to keep enormously busy so I don’t dwell on my son’s deployment to the middle east.

When people I haven’t seen in a while ask me how I’m doing, I can honestly say, with a huge smile, that I’m great. I feel good (largely due to the diet I’m on, Dr. Weil’s anti inflammatory diet, (as assigned by my cardiologist) and I am super busy and enjoying the adventure. Plus, what’s not to love just sitting and watching the birds and insects flit around all over my yard. I head out to Peters Valley on Friday (with a load of dressforms in the car) to take another class, this one a three-day weaving class called Textural Abstraction & Woven Imagery, which changed a bit from what I signed up for, as the teacher cancelled at the last minute, but someone else is stepping in and I’m sure I’ll take away something from it…

I play bass recorder with Montclair Early Music at a medieval festival on Sunday, at the Montclair Art Museum, so that should be a fun diversion for the day. Most of the music is pretty straightforward, easily sight-readable, Henry the VIII sort of fare, (he was a great composer of recorder music) but the finale piece is quite challenging. It is called Dragonborn, and is from a video game and it is quite an amazing composition.

Fall is approaching. Cooler weather (I hope) and new happenings in the garden, and more classes to take. I’m quite happy not teaching, not making stuff for sale, and just playing. I can be just as persistent. I earned it…

Mom of 3000…

Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I honestly don’t pay too much attention to Hallmark holidays. This time last year we were in Japan. My daughter bought me flowers last night, and a small piece of my favorite cake, Tiramisu. That’s a holdover from my late husband, something we both loved… And she made these tiny arrangements out of a Lego knock-off that are lovely and will sit in my window in the kitchen. My son is half way across the world doing military duty. I wish he were home.

This has been a crazy few weeks. I wanted it that way. With my son away, and drama all around me, I wanted big projects to stay as busy as I can to focus on that which I cannot change.

Everything came together in the last week. Last Sunday my music group, Montclair Early Music had their spring concert. Called Myth and Magic, it celebrated the Renaissance, and fantasy, video games, and Harry Potter. I borrowed a dress that was more fantasy than Renaissance. So I can now cross that off my list of things to focus on.

I finished the cat appliqué quilt block number 4, and this one was really really hard. All that feathery cat fur was very challenging to appliqué.

I’m working on block 5, my goal is one a month and finish by the end of the year when I can give it to my mom. It was her project, quilt block of the month from Maggie Walker, purchased in the late 90’s. She asked me to make it for her since she is in her 90’s and her eyesight and arthritic fingers make it too difficult for her to work on. I found the endless stitching to be centering, soothing, and really really good for my mental health.

This past Thursday night, my retrospective at County College of Morris, in Morris County, NJ reopened. Though the magic of the first opening will never be matched, a number of my guild members came and we had the most lovely time, chatting, talking about weaving, and we met a new fellow weaver wearing an awesome handwoven scarf, which we were all over, and convinced him to join the guild. Which he did. Our numbers are growing…

Monday I give the keynote address to the Morris County Teen Arts Festival, and then that will be behind me. The exhibit will be open through the summer, now through August 22. Hours are M-F 9-6. There is hope that there will be Saturday hours, but a lot of people have to agree, including security, and they aren’t always on the same page.

Meanwhile, this week, my landscape designer, who has been here for more than a month, finished planting more than 3000 perennials, with a couple dozen bushes and trees, almost all native, and designed to attract pollinators, and bloom from early spring into late fall. I have so much to learn. But I’m starting with something.

My job is to keep everything alive for the next few weeks until root systems are established. A couple hours of watering a day will be required. I knew what I was getting into, but what I didn’t know, was how magical early mornings are, with robins, and butterflies, and bugs, and nature all doing its thing. I’ve never spent so much time outside. There is a robin that comes and finds me every morning. And a pair of cardinals that lurks nearby. And there is a painted lady butterfly that is checking out all the new plants. I’m learning each type of plant the designer put in. We went around today and labeled things so I’d be able to learn to recognize plants from their earliest spring sprouts through blooming, and dying back in the fall. The ponds continue to be a challenge, but they are full of happy fish.

The designer laid two palettes of gorgeous bluestone. Some of it is surrounded by grass, but the rest will eventually be buried in beds of phlox and violets. All those little plugs will fill in and there won’t be visible dirt to weed.

I’ve had well meaning friends wonder why I don’t just invest in sprinklers. Not only is that an indiscriminate waste of water, but what I water and how much depends on each plant and its location. And if it rained recently and how much. This is sort of like having a new baby, scant directions, developing new instincts, flying by the seat of your pants, because you have little idea of what you are doing. But I’m trying, and hoping to keep my 3000+ charges alive. And make sure the southern Magnolias and American Holly don’t get root rot.

And I’ve been clearing a decent size bed, between my property and the edge of the backyard next door, of bags full of Creeping Charlie. And other invasive nasties. I’m thinking this is where I want to put my dye garden. I just have to look up what to plant. I’m going shopping next week! In search of dye plants… And maybe start a watercolor gardening journal, there are some really beautiful things in my yard…

I’m doing what I love, learning something new. Discovering a new magical world. And I am willing to work hard to keep it all alive. We didn’t kill all the invasives, there are still a lot on my property. Mostly what’s left serves a purpose, privacy, screening, shade, beautiful fall color. Bit by bit, as the newly planted trees and bushes grow, I’ll be taking a lot more out. And I’m finding things I didn’t know I had, violets, fleabane, and some other cool things the landscape designer identified, but I’ve already forgotten. And yes, that is an Alaskan Weeping Cedar, and no it is not native to NJ, but as my landscape designer said, it is a really cool tree…

So Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, and everyone out there who cares for something, whether it be a child, a dog, a cat, goldfish in a pond, or a tree. There is something healing about caring for something outside yourself. It takes a village, it takes a planet.

Stay tuned…