Retrospective at County College of Morris Titan Gallery

No rest for the weary…

First, let me say that at this point in my life, everything I agree to, everything I participate in, and how much I participate, is completely my choice. I’ve spent my life overbooking myself, because it is what I do, and my twilight “retirement years” are no exception. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m absolutely not the kind of person who sits on the couch watching TV, I got rid of the TV after the flood.

And in my twilight years, especially now that I’m widowed, it is super important to be with a community, or multiple communities, as is the case. I will always have my textile community, my friends, my guild mates, my former students, I love them all and try to gather with them as often as I can. Now there is the early music community, and my beginner cello opportunities, plus the native plant people who are even more generous than the handweaving community, if that’s possible.

And of course there are lots of volunteer opportunities, like at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, where I get to hang with the most amazing and talented people. Who knew with 60 years of sewing experience behind me, I could still learn so much.

So yes, my life is crazy busy, and right now way overbooked, but I have a reason to get out of bed each morning and deal with the most critical things, and learn, and celebrate, and create, and I’d say, there is nothing I’d change about my life.

Where to begin…

When I posted last month, I was just beginning to figure out what I wanted to make for my guild sale. My plan, which worked spectacularly well, was to gather all the leftover fabrics, swatches, samples, etc, from the last couple of years, and create stacks of kits so I would know what I had for inventory. The inventory sheets were due ahead of the sale, so the committee could generate bar coded tags. Then I could sew like the wind…

So I cut out tote bags… with just a dusting of scrap left…

And I took a pile of sushi containers and made tons of ornaments…

And I cut out something like 18 zippered project bags, and five ginger jars.

I took advantage of the timing of the Weaving History Conference, sponsored by the Thousand Island Arts Center in Clayton, NY. It was held the end of October, and it was three days of Zoom lectures, which were fantastic. I highly recommend it. I was so very impressed at the passion of the speakers, to devote their lives to the research on some pretty obscure topics, much to the delight of the audience who listened to them. This is the same art center that houses the handweaving museum, which is in the process of building a larger space to house/exhibit their vast textile archives and holdings. They are the ones that if all goes well, sometime in 2026, they will take much of my work from my retrospective exhibit last year at County College of Morris. Anyway, I sat for three days watching Zoom sessions and hand stitching my little heart out… By the end of the conference, all the handwork was done.

I had bunches of ornaments… (many of which sold at the guild sale, the remaining few are now at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ lobby shop at the Kirby Theatre)

I had 5 ginger jars, all of which sold within the first hour of the guild sale, to the same person. She would have bought more if I’d had them…

I made three stuffed bears, in addition to the two remaining rabbits I had from last year. I sold one of the rabbits and the bears and remaining rabbit are at the Shakespeare Theatre shop. The bears are so freaking cute…

I made a pile of new tote bags, one is missing from the photo as it sold within hours of my making it, to one of my musician friends. I think there are only two left, they are at the Shakespeare Theatre.

I added more greeting cards, many of which sold…

I put two of my woven scarves in the sale, and two of the scarves I wove on the remaining deflected double weave warp from the Natalie Drummond class my guild sponsored in the spring, along with four botanically printed scarves, and all of the scarves sold.

And I created, like I said, something like 18 zippered project bags, in addition to what was left from last year, many of them from Botanically printed silk scraps. This was one of my favorites, with a base of kimono silk from my trip to Japan a couple years ago.

I think there were only about five left when I packed up Sunday night of the sale, they are at the theatre lobby shop.

As you can probably surmise, I did really really well at the sale. It helped that I was there, working the floor the entire three days, and it helped that my friends from the plant communities and the music communities, and my weaving friends from afar all came to buy my work. It is fun to go to a musical gig and see one of my totes carrying someone’s music.

Just before Halloween, I volunteered to work the Shakespeare Theatre costume and prop sale, an annual fund raising event for them. Of course one can’t help but look at what’s on the rack, and I came home with this amazing vest, which was custom made for one of the actors in Romeo and Juliet, but came out the wrong size. It was tiny. I could technically fit in it, but I needed more arm movement for playing the cello, so I thought, “What would we have done in the costume shop?” I ended up creating extensions in black microsuede, which encased loops, and stitched them to the zipper tape, to camouflage the zipper, and give me a couple more inches across the chest. And with a shoelace, I had an instant closure. I was so freaking proud of my solution.

And I took a denim split pant I picked up at the costume sale, remade it and wore it, with the vest, to my performance Sunday at a local Viking Festival, Gormanudur. I played cello and bass recorder. Someone grabbed a photo of me and my friend Ken, who plays all of the recorders, and bass clarinet. In addition to early music, we played some wonderful series and video game music, from Lord of the Rings, Skyrim, Valhalla, etc. And I was delighted to see in the audience one of my weaving guild friends. Her husband is a professional musician. My world overlaps in the best ways!

And though at first glance, my gardens have gone to sleep, my son came and helped me bring in the hoses, put away the mowers, and cut back some of the more prolific Joe Pye Weed and Rudbeckia, to keep the pathways clear for winter walking. It poured rain the day he came, but we persevered and took care of my list anyway, getting completely soaked, but ultimately triumphing and accomplishing my agenda.

I had to pick all the tomatoes left on the vines, we had a hard frost that night. My window sills were full, and I’ve made a lot more sauce and froze it, and oven dried a lot more cherry tomatoes to add to my bags in the freezer.

There are so many berries out there on the bushes, some are native, and some are not, but my gardens are still a work in progress, and I’ll probably remove more invasives next year as the native plants fill in.

And on my walk around the yard this morning, I couldn’t believe how many things were still blooming… I especially loved the rose bud way up in the air against a brilliant blue sky.

And so, now that the guild sale is behind me, and remaining inventory delivered to the Shakespeare Theatre (I let them keep all the money from anything they sell), I can concentrate on all the upcoming performances, and the more than 100 pieces of music I need to learn for them. Yes, it is really hard work, and yes it is probably way too much. But I am learning so fast, and practicing really hard, and making such wonderful supportive friends, and having a blast playing dress up, that saying “no” isn’t going to be part of my vocabulary for the foreseeable future. And I just ordered a 3D carbon fiber cello, because I’m a handweaver with about 30 looms, (down from 64), why would I only have one cello… (The real reason is apparently I’m a klutz, and I’ve had three accidents with my wood cello, all from things falling on it while I was playing another instrument… I still have to send it in for repair from the previous accident).

And so, I probably won’t post again until after Thanksgiving; for all of you that use the time for quiet recharging, or spend the time with family and friends, for better or for worse, I hope that the holiday brings you a chance to give thanks, for what we have, community that supports us, and in spite of the curious world we are living in at the moment, with whiplash at every turn, there are always trees and bushes to tell us that spring will come again, and that life is renewable…

Stay tuned…

While I was planning something else…

Most of you know at this point that my son has been deployed to a place in the middle east that is challenging. My goal this year was to stay so busy I wouldn’t have time to think about that challenge. And so far that has been my life saver. The exhibit was one of the greatest things to happen to me professionally. It is down now, or rather the 41 dress forms have been moved to a smaller gallery, the Titan Gallery, around the corner from the main gallery. That leaves the main gallery for their end of semester student show. I had wanted to get there to see it. At the beginning of May, the full exhibit will return, exactly the way it was, to the main gallery, with another reopening May 9th, coordinating with the Teen Arts Festival. The exhibit will remain up until the end of August. I expect to be there the final couple days before reopening to check that all the labels are correct and all the clothing hanging the way I like it. Lots of zhuzhing up…

Here are a couple images from the Titan Gallery.

The show will reopen with a formal opening from 6-8PM on May 9th, that’s a Thursday, and the hours of the show, from what I understand, are M-F 9-6, and probable Saturday hours, but that’s not confirmed.

The response has been overwhelming, carloads of friends, guild members from across three states, friends from my High School in South Jersey, I’m touched and honored at the support. What a beautiful way to end my professional career, allowing me to do fun things that retired people do. Like weave, knit, garden, volunteer, you know. Have fun…

I made the decision last fall, that I really needed to remove the invasives from my property, and so I hired a fantastic landscape designer, highly recommended, to basically redesign my property. I mentioned this before in my blog. She has been remarkable. Covered in mud at the end of the day, she is out there with her one helper, hauling dirt, hauling trees, moving boulders around my yard. This is just one area that she has cleaned out and reworked, and the hundreds of plugs of perennials will eventually be added. My entire property will basically look like this but full of perennials. My only job is to keep this watered and weeded until everything is established. No problem she says with complete confidence…

Meanwhile, I had this beautiful vine covered gazebo that became invaded by a horrifically invasive Akebia vine. Which I did not plant. It killed everything else, except one pocket of cross vine, struggling for any kind of survival. I gave my daughter permission to start ripping. 11 bags later to the brush recycling, and the structure had been so compromised that we decided to purchase a similar domed structure that would help support the crossvine and any new ones we planted, and anchored the two together. It will be a few years, but I’ll have my gazebo back.

So while all of that is happening, I signed up for a three day workshop through my guild, with Rosalie Neilson, on Rep. Rep is a warp face structure, with alternating thick and thin wefts. It is great for rugs, and bags, and I just wanted to hang with my weaving buddies. Day 2 was entertaining in that we were about 15 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake that struck western NJ. It was felt up into Boston. They are still talking about it. 4.8 magnitude. Not common on the east coast. At first I thought the building had been hit by a truck, but the rumbling and shaking kept happening. It took us a long time to figure out it was an earthquake, and so we ran outside. I have to honestly say, it was an incredible experience to feel the earth under my feet swaying back and forth, like waves, subtle but very intense. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was a powerful thing to witness. We stayed outside for about 15 minutes and decided we were cold and went back to the workshop. No discernable damage, we kept close watch on our phones for any updates. There have been something like 85 aftershocks, none of which I felt.

We ended the workshop on Saturday, and though I still have warp left, I cut off what I’d done, and we all got to take pictures. I’ve done rep before, so I understood it, but I had never tried Warp Floats, which is a sort of turned Honeycomb structure, except both sides are the inverse of each other unlike weft Honeycomb. I want to try more of that.

Sunday, one of my guild buddies and I headed into NY to the NY Botanical Gardens Orchid show. It was of course gorgeous, and I couldn’t take enough photos. Their infamous glass house of course had other types of plants, and I’m always up for cactus and succulents.

Lots of inspiration here, especially for dyeing…

Meanwhile, because I’d pulled a lot of old work and scraps from the attic looking for things for the retrospective, I had piles of scraps, still, from the production years in the 1980’s. I hate to just toss all of it. I keep thinking that there has to be some fun thing I can do, some patchworky thing, besides all the ornaments, bags, totes, greeting cards, etc., I do already for my guild sale. These are not my best fabrics, these are plain weave, mixed warps, all from the early and mid-1980’s. But they are still valid fabrics. So I thought I might try my favorite sweater jacket pattern, and maybe a larger size, so someone bigger than me can fit into it at my guild sale. I started to lay out the fabrics in a blocky random way.

I have lots of colors in scraps of silk noil, that I made into bias tubes to put between the butted handwoven scraps, which were fused onto a backing. I added a layer of punch needle fleece, so when I stitch down the bias tubes, I’d be essentially quilting the jacket.

I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I see the back finished, I’m really liking it and can’t wait to see it as a finished jacket. There is a four part series of this piecing technique on my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. They were some of the last ones I recorded.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing work on the cat appliqué quilt blocks my mom gave me last year, something she wanted to start in the 90’s, but never got around to it. She asked me to make it for her. I was horrified at first, but then started playing around with it, and truth be told this is so much fun. I love watching each cat build from the fabrics they give you. This one is particularly challenging with all the fringy fur. But I’m finishing up quilt block 4 of 9. Blocks 1-3 are in previous blog posts. This cat is a Persian, and all that is left is the face, which has something like 35 pieces.

And in between all of that, I’m rehearsing for a concert in May, with my early music group. I love the music, Renaissance music is fun and fun to play, and this particular concert will also include music from video games like the Legend of Zelda.

I should have been at rehearsal tonight. But life sort of got in the way. You know, things happen when you are planning something else?

So Tuesday, I was running around shopping and packing boxes to send to my son overseas. He asked for some things like K-cups and snacks, and I’m a good military mom, and got right on it. Trying to fit everything into one box proved challenging, so I went out to our recycling bin for a second box. I was running up and down between floors, my house is 125+ years old and there are practically steps between every room. I came down carrying the second box and missed the last step and next thing I knew, I’m screaming in pain, and the indignity of it all, and please don’t let it be broken.

I did manage to get to the post office, to ship two boxes of stuff to my son in parts of the world that are challenging. I left the post office and knew at that point that it was broken. Three hours in the ER confirmed. I’m pissed of course, because I’m having fun, and keeping busy doing the things I want to do. I want to be in the gardens. I want to be at music rehearsal. I want to be weaving, and planning, and volunteering. The diagnosis is a cortical avulsion fracture at the dorsum of the navicular, with a possible fracture at the lateral aspect of the cuboid. Or in simpler terms, I broke the top of my foot.

They gave me a temporary splint, and a pair of crutches, and may I say that giving an almost 70 year old woman a pair of crutches is pretty dangerous. I almost killed myself a half dozen times on the way home.

I saw the foot specialist today, and in the corner of the waiting room was this really pretty fake hydrangea. I got a picture of it. I loved the colors. I’m already thinking it will be my next warp. The foot specialist put me in a boot, but wants an MRI, scheduled for Monday to make sure I didn’t tear the tendon coming from my ankle. I doubt it, and I’m in absolutely no pain. There isn’t much swelling, and I’m learning to navigate with this giant thing on my foot. Please don’t tell me I’m doing too much. There is no way I can sit on the couch with my feet up for anything longer than an hour or two. I just can’t do it. There is too much going on, animals to attend to, and too many fun things I want to do. So I will find a way. My next goal is to figure out how to get out in the garden, sit my butt on a cart, and continue pulling out invasives. A broken shoulder two years ago didn’t stop me, and a broken foot won’t either.

So I’ll be at my opening in a boot, I’ll give the Teen Arts Festival keynote address in a boot. I’ll perform at my early music concert in medieval garb, with a boot. I’ll take a workshop in natural dyeing at Peters Valley in a boot. And I’ll drive to a farm in south Jersey for a lecture on growing dye plants, in a boot. And I’ll do what I always do. And if I have to weave on a floor loom, I still have one usable foot. Mostly I’m working on table looms, so that isn’t an issue at the moment.

I’ll post the updated promotional materials for the exhibit once I have them, and I’ll keep you posted on the gardens and all my other adventures. The pieced jacket will probably be on hold a bit, because when I build these pieces I stand at the cutting table. Standing is a bit challenging at the moment, but I’ll figure out a way.

Enjoy your spring my friends, heavy rains due in tonight. Everything will get a good drink of water.

Stay tuned…