Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

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…

Drunken Looms…

I haven’t forgotten you dear readers, life is full of whirling crazy days, I’m busy, sometimes too much, but I have no complaints. I’m never bored…

My last blog post, I talked about a draft I’ve been mulling over for quite awhile. It seems to be the draft du jour, and all of my friends with multi-shaft computer assisted looms are just knocking it out in record time.

One of them sent me a picture of her version, a few yards, accomplished easily and quickly on her 32 shaft loom. She wove hers with a black weft. It was really cool. I only have 8 shafts, and spent months figuring out how to accomplish it with so few, and I was really proud of myself for making it work. But I really liked her black weft.

So I went back to the drawing board, so to speak, or in this case my computer weaving software, and realized that this had real possibilities. So I wove a block repeat with a black 20/2 cotton weft. The tie down thread is a dark brown linen.

I loved it and wove another block.

I called my daughter down to the studio and showed her how excited I was. She looked at it, now that there was a clear line between the black and white wefts, in relation to the breast beam and said, without missing a beat, “That’s cool, but it isn’t weaving square.” I looked carefully at the two sides of the cloth in relationship to the breast beam, and sure enough, the cloth was off by nearly half an inch. I just sat there in stunned amazement while she moved over to the left of the loom and said, without missing a beat, “Well there’s your problem, the ratchet on the cloth beam is on the opposite side of the brake, so when you tighten the warp, it throws the loom out of square. It is a torque physics thing mom…” She rolled her eyes and walked away.

I’ve been weaving on this loom since the very early 80’s. Mostly I make my colorful warp striped scarves, which are only 10″ wide, and the max width of this loom is 25″. I love this loom. How could I not have noticed that?

I turned around to the loom behind me, a recently acquired 32″ 4 shaft, also a Tools of the Trade, but one of the really early ones, because I’ve had problems with it weaving square since I bought the loom. Turns out, the ratchet and dog on the cloth beam are also on opposite sides of the brake.

Now what…

This haunted me for days. I had a student coming for a five day weaving class, and I just couldn’t get out of my head that my looms were drunk and though I had yards of warp on each one, I couldn’t see weaving it knowing the loom was off and why.

I laid awake as any good weaver will do trying to figure out how to trouble shoot this seemingly impossible situation…

The only solution was to cut off what I’d woven, flip the entire cloth beam mechanism, including the side supports that held it, and put the ratchet and dog on the same side as the brake.

With a glass of wine, and a huge sigh, I removed the yard of cloth I had already woven on each of the two drunk looms. I got out tools, and started to work. It was challenging getting to all the internal screws holding the side supports with a still intact warp, tied off at the reed, but surgery was the only option here.

I slowly reassembled the parts on each one, and realized that the ratchet also had to flip, so the teeth would face in the correct direction, but the metal ratchet was counter sunk on the wrong side, so I will eventually have to investigate different screws since I can’t really counter sink the metal from the opposite side and trust that the hole won’t break away. Meanwhile, I just wanted to weave again.

So both looms have “sobered up” and I’m happy to say that they are weaving square. Perfectly. I am pretty proud of myself.

And I had also corrected, before I put the Harvest warp on, a split warp beam on the 32″ loom, that happened when my strong as an ox daughter was trying to tighten a rug on it. And this loom did not have a friction brake which drove me nuts.

I pulled that beam, glued it and clamped it with a permanent pipe clamp, and taking a page out of the Macomber loom playlist, which has a mechanism with a cord and chain that creates a drag on the warp beam of a loom without a friction brake, I rigged up a couple of bungee cords which works perfectly!

Meanwhile, my student came, and spent five days in my weaving studio designing and weaving off four yards of pretty complicated fabric, with combination structures and supplemental warps. She brought all of the yarn with her, and was able to use most of it.

Because there was a lot of time just hanging while she sleyed, threaded and wove the four yards of fabric, I sat at neighboring looms and just wove, on the simple stuff so I could always be available for questions.

I cleared the Zanshi fabric, woven from tying all the thrum ends together of my leftover warps, which I did while watching endless Zoom presentations for the last couple years. There might be 6 yards. I haven’t cut it off and washed it yet.

And I cleared the other loom that I had performed surgery on, just the morning before I picked her up at the airport. Another 6-7 yards probably.

And I sat in the back corner of the studio, within earshot and wove a substantial amount of my doup leno structure on the table loom from hand dyed cashmere, while looking out the window at the beautiful lush November rain falling on the pond.

I was wishing I had more days where I could just sit in the studio and just weave. My days are full of stuff that doesn’t allow me to be in the weaving studio. I’m always at my desk in the 2nd floor office, like I am now, or in the basement sewing studio, prepping for another YouTube video, The Weaver Sews. Things are coming along there, as I build a tunic from a beautiful hand dyed and hand woven wool.

And the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ is finally having an in person live performance at their theater, first since their production of A Christmas Carol December of 2019. I volunteer as a stitcher in the costume shop, which is just gloriously fun for me, and they called and asked if I’d come again. With a mask, and my sewing kit, I head there once a week. I hem pants and sleeves, move buttons and add snaps, just easy stuff that gives them an extra set of hands, and I love seeing the behind the scenes look at a very professional costume shop.

To all of you who celebrate some kind of seasonal gathering with family, like Thanksgiving for my American friends, stay safe and wear a mask. We aren’t out of the woods yet. I’ve had my booster and my flu shot. I’m staying local and visiting my son, who will make his first Thanksgiving meal.

Stay tuned…

Clap on 1, on 2, on 3…

I’m slowly learning a new language for podcasts, videos, recordings, and one of them, that absolutely delights me is when the cameras and audio are rolling for our Friday shoot for the YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews, and my daughter says, “Clap on 1, on 2, on 3” and then I try to clap as loud as I can. We snicker when I do a pathetic clap, and cheer when I do a loud crisp clap, that is perfect for aligning the audio and video tracks. It’s the little things that we hold on to for entertainment in these trying times…

I talked about the design inspiration and how I got to decide what components to use for the vest I videoed the last couple of Fridays in my last blog post. This is my 500 vest pattern, and I used handwoven fabric I wove for this vest, called Shadow Tapestry, which I developed for Silk City Fibers since they comped me the yarn, to see what I could do with it. The draft is free and available here.

I finished up the vest this weekend, and I’m more than happy. For the closure, I ended up making a twist ply rope for a button loop, and using an industrial epoxy to glue a flat button on the back of a piece of Polyform clay that use to be a pin, purchased sometime in the 80’s or 90’s, when Fimo was a thing, and it has been sitting in my box of oddities for many many years. I like my oddities box.

This morning I woke up to an Instagram message that a podcast I recorded a few weeks ago had dropped, and we had such a good time and we talked for such a long time, they made it into a 2 part podcast. Part two airs next Sunday. The podcast was from a group called The Professional Weaver Society, and I’m episode 42. I started looking over the Professional Weavers who have recorded interviews with Tegan and Eric, the brains behind the podcasts and I was stunned. There are some amazing interviews on this podcast, and I have a lot of listening to do. Tegan took a workshop with me at Harrisville Designs a couple years ago, and she was such a delight, grilling me with questions on marketing, selling, and general questions about doing this whole weaving thing for a living. She so reminded me of myself at that age. She is an amazing powerhouse of talent and energy, and her guy Eric is a huge support.

Meanwhile, I listened to my episode today while I finished up the vest. It was a cold rainy day here in NJ, and the flowers and lettuces were loving it. Even though I know how the story turns out, obviously, it was still hilarious listening to myself talk about how I got to be who I am.

And while I mull over the topic for next week’s shoot, I started on a massive project for the loom. This is one of the more ambitious things I’ve done, and it all started with this odd pile of hand dyed wools, mohairs, and odd protein fibers, some of which I can’t completely identify, but they took an acid dye well (Cushings) and I’m including all of it.

I love giving myself really tight parameters. Toss some yarn on the table and see what I can do with it. I’ve got empty looms, and lots of yarn. I spent the better part of this past week doing careful calculations on what’s in each skein, how much, and how far it will go.

I calculated a 55/45% split, and decided, even though I love single shuttle weave structures, that I wanted to do another plaid, like this one, which will be featured in an article in the next Handwoven Magazine.

So I sat down tonight on my computer and carefully plugged in a plaid, using all the yarns from the pile on the table, and got this. When I told the software to “Weave as Drawn In” and selected the Colors and the Draft, I squealed in delight as this popped up on my screen.

Only problem is, I need to put this on my 36″ loom, because my daughter is hogging the two 45″ looms we have, and I don’t have a 6 dent reed for the 36″ loom. Which means I have to buy a new reed. Which means this project will be delayed, but I can still wind the warp and get it ready. The sett will be 12 epi, and I’ll sley two ends per dent. (If you aren’t a weaver you have no idea what I just wrote. I’m sorry…)

I know I’ll probably regret picking a project where I have to change the weft every two picks or so, but I like challenges, and it is such fun to use up stuff that is just sitting in a basket calling to me every time I go out in the studio…

I also mentioned in the last blog post that I had donated a handdyed and handwoven scarf to the Shakespeare Theater of NJ for their spring virtual auction, which is happening now. I promised to let you know when it was available for bidding. I love this theater company, and right before the pandemic hit I was volunteering in their fabulous costume shop, and loving every minute of the experience. I’m doing everything I can to support them and my other favorite arts organization Peters Valley.

I get my second vaccine on Wednesday, and hopefully that will keep me safe, especially since I have my last two in-person workshops scheduled at Peters Valley this summer. They are both weaving workshops and I believe both are filled!

The trees and bulbs are spectacular this year, I’d like to think the superior air quality and lack of pollution from last year contributed to this glorious spring, I don’t really know since I’m not a scientist, but they are spectacular for whatever reason.

Enjoy spring, wherever you live, there is light at the end of this long endless tunnel. Stay tuned…

Hope…

Today is a bittersweet day, my late husband would have turned 70. My daughter and I were talking about all of the things that have happened in this world since he died almost 5 years ago, and how much we would love just to sit with him one more time and hear his thoughts on the bigger picture. He was always good at that.

So we started the day with my late husband’s most favorite thing, a NJ classic, Taylor Ham, egg and cheese on an Everything Bagel. The shop on Main Street makes the best. Actually I started the day with a 4 mile walk through town, to a ball field, around the track and back, but my daughter would never get up that early!

And spring arrived this weekend. Along with glorious sunshine and temps in the 60’s. So to celebrate that, and my late husband’s garden legacy that my daughter painstakingly rebuilt last fall, we went to the local garden center and bought cold weather crops, lettuces, salad mixes, kale and collards. They will get planted next weekend. And pansies. We planted pansies. They are the most colorful wonderful sign of hope, rebirth, spring. My late husband is smiling.

This past weekend was the Florida Tropical Weavers Conference, and I was a presenter, actually I was the first to present last Friday. I’ve done this conference before in person, and it is always a treat to head to Florida in March when NJ cold just won’t seem to end. This year it was virtual, and though I know this is not a replacement for an in person conference, this team did an outstanding job of bringing the entire conference to the membership remotely. As a presenter, I got to tune in whenever I wanted, and they even had a fashion show slide presentation! I skipped the Saturday evening Pajama Party, there is such a thing as too much screen time. I loved the lectures, and was particularly inspired, which means I needed to finish off some things so I can get new stuff on the looms.

And so I did. First up was my taxes. This is probably the job I hate the most in my life. Yes, I turn everything over to an accountant, but with a business and payroll, there are just so many things to pull together and I’m terrible at using Quickbooks. Really. We are not friends. So I resort to doing things mostly by hand. My accountant promised after tax season last year to teach me some basics, but of course with Covid, that never happened. So taxes are now done and delivered to the accountant.

I finished a sweater I started a couple months ago. It still needs blocking, but I think I’m just going to put it on and let my body heat do the job, before it gets too warm to wear it. Pattern is C2Knits Jemma, and the yarn is Rowan Alpaca Colour in Topaz. I had help of course.

I finished weaving a run of six scarves, because one of my favorite arts venues, The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, struggling to hold on valiantly through Covid, is having another online auction fundraiser. I wanted to donate one of my scarves and they were still on the loom. So I wove off the last one, washed and dried, tagged and delivered the scarf today. I’ll let you know when the online auction starts which will be in a couple weeks, but if you just periodically go to the site, you’ll see when the auction preview is up. Bid early and often! This one is called Autumn Harvest, which I know isn’t really spring like, but I started it going into last Autumn. Weaving is a slow thing… (Actually, I think this is one of my all time favorite color combos I’ve ever done…) Mostly hand dyed yarns, rayon, cotton, Tencel, silk. 8 Shaft combination plain weave, twill, with supplemental ribbons. You can purchase and download the draft here…

And my Harris Tweed Jacket… I’ve been working on this step by step in my YouTube video series The Weaver Sews. I sat outside today in the glorious sunshine and finished up sewing on the buttons and removing all the tailor’s tacks. I adore this jacket. I can’t wait to make this my new go to jacket to grab and go. The trim is caviar leather and the pattern is my 200 jacket with the welt pocket variation. And of course I had help with this as well…

And so I started another sweater, this one from Harrisville Silk and Wool I bought when I was teaching up there a couple years ago, they had a mis-dye, and the skeins were pretty cheap, but I loved the color, I don’t have anything like it in my wardrobe so this should be fun. The pattern is from Harrisville Designs, Mattock by Amy Herzog. I should have this done in time for fall.

And in the paper the other day, I came across my horoscope, I’m always entertained by them, I don’t really know why, but once in awhile, one makes me sit up and think.

And yes, the things I do are familiar, and that is so very comforting. And I forget that others don’t have the kind of experience I’ve been gifted over the years, and sharing is important. I’ve now turned down pretty much all of my future travel opportunities, and I sort of think of myself as retired, but yet I’m busier than I’ve ever been, but with stuff that makes me really happy, converting my vast knowledge base into a digital legacy, through the YouTube channel, and some of my writings and instructions. And the patterns. I get up every morning, take care of the animals and then walk. I just walk. I get to breathe, think, get inspired, and I’m not a completely crazy person trying to do it all. I actually have time to go to the garden center and by pansies and put them in a pot. Or three.

My daughter qualified for her first dose of the Covid vaccine. I’m still waiting for a call, but I’m hopeful that I’ll have it soon. Meanwhile, I’m patient, I’m a weaver. We can be very patient. And I’m exploding with ideas of fabric I want to weave (my daughter and I are arguing over who gets to play with a stash of Harrisville yarns we have… ).

Stay tuned, enjoy the sun, it brings hope and flowers and birds and signs of spring.