Saturday, May 2, 2009

Where did the past month go?

My ideals of posting at least every week have again washed away, with the spring rains this time.

I've been weaving rugs, not at the rate which I would like, but they are coming along. Working fulltime really puts the crunch on weaving stock for a show. I do not want to drop this show, though. I've worked too hard to build a clientele.

I have been weaving 12 yard warps, using up various colors of warp thread I had on hand. I have another 12 yard warp ready to tie on today? tomorrow? After I get all the large rugs I need, I'll put on a 50 yard section warp for small rugs. I just got a warp thread order in from Great Northern Weaving last week, so am flush with warp thread again. It's a good feeling!

On the Newcomb, the skirt fabric is coming along. The nice thing about having a fabric project going is even if I have only 30 minute, I can throw a few bobbins worth of weft and accomplish another couple feet on the project. The weft cone for this piece is going down, down, down pretty quickly. I'm hoping I will indeed have enough fabric when it comes down to it.

Besides my new warp thread, I got an order of mill ends in last week. Just a few cones, but some very nice cotton/linen in about a 10/2 slub and a couple acrylic boucles. And, the most exciting new purchase for Hay Creek Handwovens is a Dritz dressform which I just ordered from JoAnn Fabric. It is deeply discounted - nearly 50%. The Singers were on sale the last month but they had very poor reviews, so I waited, hoping the Dritz would go on sale, and it did! This should make sewing for other people much easier.

The Missouri Coalition for the Environment eARThworks art show is on line. Check it out. I am so honored to be allowed in this show.

Other happenings in the past month: 1. the Spring membership drive at the NPR station where I work was a success. Lots of extra hours, lots of extra work before and after, but we met our goal. 2. I spent a week in Pasadena with children and grandchild and went to the Huntington Gardens this time. Amazing. The desert gardens completely took me by surprise. The variations of plant size, color, texture, growth pattern - I just gaped. Very interesting color combinations, too. Ninny that I am, I didn't take my camera. But I saw turquoise flowers on one cactus, lots of extremely bright tufty-looking flowers on others. The flowers on cacti aren't huge, and that's a good lesson for designing. I hope to get a cactus-inspired fabric going after this skirt fabric comes off.