Rocker – Daryl's Blog

It’s official…I’ve come completely unglued!

Well it was inevitable. I hung on, one foot in front of the other, trying to stay on top of the lists, and ahead of the schedule. Best laid plans. I was doing pretty well, going into the weekend. Really wishing I could just sit down and sew, or paint a warp, or do something other than prepare for my trip, I never-the-less plowed ahead, after all, this is my job, and I don’t get paid unless I fly someplace and teach. And I haven’t done that since last November. So, if i want to continue living in the manner in which I am accustomed, I need to work, and therefore, I need to do this prep work, though I probably shouldn’t have said yes to the guild commitments in March.

Anyway, on Sunday morning, my husband, for many many reasons which I won’t dwell on here, decided that we would be better off if we moved all our email accounts off the host server for my website, and onto Google as a host server, apparently there is an APP for that. And for many of those reasons, I agreed to let him make the switch, they all made sense, but I will say I wasn’t expecting it to happen on Sunday, six days before I leave for a 6 week marathon. Of course moving his account was no problem. When he went to do mine… well lets just say that we finally got it up and running properly on the new server, today, that would be Tuesday. And I’m slowly losing all my hair from ripping it out. It makes nice curls when it hits the floor in clumps… So, Amy, my mail to you won’t be blocked anymore, since I probably shared space on the old host server with a porn site or two, and now, I can access my mail files from my laptop on the road, or any place I can access Google and still keep my original email address. It is a wonderful thing, but, don’t try this at home, or at least don’t try this six days before you plan to go out of town…

I think I printed over 300 monographs and handouts, and I have a serious wrist sprain from all the binding. I’ve trekked boxes to the shipper, I’ve cut bolts of pattern paper, interfacing, and assorted materials, organized and categorized, and made my poor brain explode. But I was doing pretty well, in spite of the mess with my computer, until the weather report yesterday. That put me over the edge. Yes I know an 18″ of snow blizzard is out of my control, yes I know I just need to not stress about it and keep breathing, yes I know I’ll eventually make it to LA, hopefully in time to teach Saturday. And yes, I know there is a good chance of a power outage during that blizzard and I won’t be able to print, back up and transfer files, download books on tape onto my iTouch for the trip, or any of the 4000 things on my to do list that require electricity for the next 48 hours.

So, I went into emergency plans, that is to re-prioritize my to do list in order of electrical usage. So all the books/handouts/monographs are printed, (there was a huge delay there since the $500. worth of ink I ordered got stuck in Tennessee and was late coming in on the Fed Ex truck). All the books on tape are downloaded. I’ve transferred back up files of my presentations to my thumb drive. The only thing remaining that requires the computer, is entering the remaining four shows. I will do that first thing tomorrow morning. The snow isn’t suppose to start until later tonight anyway. And I’ll finish vacuuming my house tonight, leaving the bathrooms and kitchen to clean tomorrow and Thursday(which don’t take electricity), I’d like to leave behind a clean house so it won’t be cited by the health department when I return in two weeks. 🙂

But the good news is, I did manage a couple of creative escapades in spite of everything, so I can show you a couple of pictures that don’t involve comb binding spines and an HP laser printer…

Remember the rocker I recovered starting last October 31st? I finished recovering the rocker pretty quickly, but decided to weave the braid for the trim, which was about 6 yards. I had the inkle loom warped for the final couple of yards, but never got around to finishing it, and since it was the back of the rocker, and no one saw it, I wasn’t real driven to put it on the top of my priority list.

Sunday night, I curled up on the couch, the way I imagine knitters do in the evenings. My husband and I watched the Super Bowl together, eating Super Bowl junk food and watching the silly commercials. I brought the little inkle loom down and sat and wove off the remaining two yards of trim, and glued it on this morning. I can’t be happier with it. The rocker is done, and my mother-in-law, who gave us the rocker as a wedding present 32 years ago, is smiling down at me. 🙂

And yesterday morning I went to my guild meeting, Frances Irwin Handweavers. We’ve been focusing on some surface design technique for the last couple of programs, and this month (I missed last month with the flu), Jenny taught us all to do some needle felting. Since I’ve done needle felting, and I didn’t really have all the required tools she wanted, and I read the newsletter too late to request a kit, and because I really didn’t have time to plan too much, I just brought along my needle felting machine and cheated. So sue me…

But, it was just what the doctor ordered.

And, on top of that, I answered a challenge from Donna Kallner, who writes a creativity blog, and suggested a creative exercise, using a dictionary and finding a word and making up a definition and basing a design exercise on the definition. I had commented that it would be fun to use the funny words you get for what’s called a Captcha, the group of letters that come up, that you have to retype when you comment on some blogs. So Donna challenged her readers to pick a medium (I picked felt, don’t have a clue why, thought it would be quick?) and a time frame, (I picked an hour), and send it to her in a comment, and use the Captcha you were assigned as inspiration. Well I answered the challenge, and my word was “dededn”. I read it as a sort of mythical dead end, and I had that in mind when I started drawing out a design with the pencil for my needle felted piece yesterday at the guild. Am I efficient or what? 🙂

I still have to do the other edge of the piece, but I can’t tell you what fun I had just playing. I worked both sides of the cloth, and I’d love to be able to sit down and finish but it will probably have to wait until I get back. OK, I’ve already spent an hour, so my time is up, but another 15 minutes won’t hurt anyone. Anyway Donna, I’m doing my best!

In case we do lose power and I can’t blog, or I just completely run out of time, I’ll do my best to write in from the road, and send photos when I can. I’m looking forward to the trip, the crazy part is getting ready, leaving stacks of stuff for my husband to deal with in my absence, making sure everything is in order and all the details are covered. Once I’m on the plane, there is nothing to do but sit and read a trashy Janet Evanovich book and relax.

Oh, and if you notice that once in awhile, a message comes up that says there is a memory problem and my blog isn’t available, we are aware of the problem, that accounts for the other pile of hair on the floor, that pile is from my husband ripping his hair out, and we are basically convinced that my current host server (the one that shares porn sites), doesn’t offer the full capabilities of Word press and what we really need to do is dump the server completely, go to Pair Networks, and bring in Word Press directly, and start over. And that’s why ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come completely unglued. Just keep trying my blog, it eventually comes back…

My Rocking Chair

All the stress of the past year is slowly melting away. I made it through all my teaching commitments, and if I end up with the flu, I can actually stay in bed and get well. So far, the flu has stayed away from our house, but it is everywhere, and I’m just lying low and hoping to fly under the proverbial radar…

I spent the day tackling my to do list, besides working my way through a very dirty house, I always liked cleaning real meaningful dirt, I sent out a proposal, for a weekly sewing class next spring at the Newark Museum, and I started playing around with the design for a new website for the Frances Irwin Handweavers. I promised them their website first. I don’t have vast archives of photos to chose from, since I’ve only been a member for a couple of years, but Sally has a computer full, and she is traveling at the moment. So I sketched out the layout, and played around with a “look” for the pages, and I’ll wait now for feedback from her and for her return and access to the photo archives. Each time I do this, I get another bald spot from ripping out my hair, but I learn so much…

Last night, I actually “got off work early”. I know that sounds like such a normal thing, but it isn’t when you are self employed and your studio is in your home. There is no huge push at the moment, just time to be creative, and rest. The spring will come too soon and I’ll be on a plane again. I don’t get caught up in the holiday madness, this is my down time and I’m not making my life crazy because our culture dictates it. So I stopped working, put together some leftovers for dinner, and then cleaned the upstairs bathroom. Then I curled up in my newly reupholstered rocker and sat by the fire in the woodstove, putting my feet up on the footstool Bri made in woodshop, and wove more inkle trim. I blew through another two yards of trim, glued it to the rocker, and with six yards finished, I only have another two yards to go, and I warped up the little inkle loom for the remainder. I’m so happy with how the rocker turned out, and I think my mother in law would be proud. If you didn’t catch that blog, the rocker was a wedding present from my mother in law to my husband and me 31 years ago. The upholstery wore out, and I found the fabric to reupholster it with on my travels last May, to Portland.

I spent today playing with my eShop on the website. I have had “updating the shop” on my to do list for months, I finished the Website Success Monograph back in the early summer, and never got around to adding it to the site. My goal was to ultimately put all of the work I took to the guild sale, that didn’t sell, up on a new page on the site, and I procrastinated on that long enough. I spent the day figuring out how to add a page, update the product line, change around some of the monograph combination’s, all of it frustrating but ultimately successful. It takes awhile to add one of the garments to the site, processing photos, and linking it to my website for further viewing, but I won’t reduce my huge body of work in my overburdened closet if I don’t at least put the work out there. So I think there are six items up there for sale, and I’ll add to it every couple of days.

I delivered the piece for the Blank Canvas event at the Visual Art Center today, usually I’m skidding in at the last minute, so a day before the deadline is actually a treat for me. I’m happy with the piece, it was fun to make, and I really need to play more often. 🙂

Meanwhile, I’m looking at all of my empty looms and the brain is just churning along, and I’m thinking that one of these days, I’m going to get out the warping mill and just start winding white warps so I can do a week or so of just painting. Looking ahead, the HGA yardage exhibit deadline is sometime in January. And I’d like to get another colorful scarf warp on the small 8 shaft, and since that has a second warp beam, I’m thinking I’d like to try to do some doup leno in addition to the supplemental warp, for additional texture. That’s a technique I haven’t played with for many many years. And on the four shaft small floor loom, I’m even thinking of setting up for an additional two overshot placemats for my daughter and me, since we each ended up with only seven mats each in the guild exchange last spring. I’m not holding out hope that the delinquent two will ever show up.

So now I have some time to be creative, and do all the computer things that have been on my list, get the two guild websites designed and built, add my huge body of work to the website eShop, and before the end of the year, I want to obtain a copy of InDesign, Adobe’s publishing software, and learn to use that. Always something new to learn and create, and invent…

Off to watch the finale for Project Runway…

The Party’s Over

And what a party it was! But sadly, all good things must come to an end, and reality takes over! So now I have a studio full of stuff to make, lots of wonderful ideas, and no time to actually sit and make stuff. Sound familiar?

I leave in two weeks for the first of a half dozen teaching commitments, which will take up most of my summer. In between I’ll be working on an article on the Designers Challenge from 2008 for SS&D, and a book review, revamping my keynote address for New England Weavers Seminar, and building the newest seminar on Website Success. This last one is a killer, and has been haunting me, lurking in the back of my mind since I agreed to do it last fall.

The more I research, the more I get overwhelmed. And all that stuff lurking around me, just calling me to come and play with it…

But I got up early, dusted my downstairs, fed the snake (don’t ask), put in the next load of laundry, cleared away all the clutter, made some breakfast, tackled some of the emails I didn’t get to answer yesterday, filled a book order, and finally sat down to work on the website seminar. Surprisingly it went well. I’m moving along on it, I have a number of resources to pull from, largely it is deciding what is important to cover, and what is “Way Too Much Information” for a 2 1/2 hour seminar.

So, I won’t be any fun until this seminar is put to bed, you’ll just have to entertain yourselves for awhile, but meanwhile, I did promise photos of the fabric I bought at the Fabric Depot in Portland, OR. for $5./yd, for my poor fading rocker. My mother in law gave this rocker to my husband and me for our wedding, we reupholstered it when she gave it to us, and we have been married now for more than 30 years. The fabric is worn to shreds, and it is on the list, the very long list of things to do around the house, but finding a fabric that I think looks great moved the reupholstering job up on the list, just slightly. Maybe in September. No wait, I promised my guild I’d redesign their website. October? No, I promised my other guild I’d redesign their website. Well, for now, I’ll just leave the fabric sitting on the rocker.

I darted out to my car this morning during a massive thunder storm, to gather up the silk scarves that were curing in black plastic, still on the floor where I had left them. I rinsed them thoroughly, like Kerr told us, and hung them to dry.

I’m so loving this technique. The lack of planning, the instant gratification, and the possibilities are making me really want to just dive into getting some screens, a padded cover for my work table and running amok! Alas, I have things to take care of first…

But they are pretty, and I have lots to look forward to. I’m hoping to spend a couple of days this summer, mixing dyes for some warps, and getting a bunch of warps painted to work on through next year, I’ve run out of handwoven fabric to sew, and am really itching to get my big loom up and running again. It has been naked waaaay too long… Of course, whatever dyes are left from that escapade can be thickened and screened on whatever is laying around. Too many techniques, not enough hours in the day….

Stay tuned…