Thanks, Tri-Community Weavers!

I had a lovely little respite this week. Since I'm away from my looms, and missing them so, a friend of my daughter-in-law invited me to her weaving class. (Thanks, Michelle!) It's offered by Tri-Community Adult Education

http://www.cvusd.k12.ca.us/tri-community/tricomhome.htm

and was a wonderful way to spend a Wednesday evening. They have several classes offered and over 100 looms in the classroom and every one of them is occupied by someone. Very reasonable tuition, and your loom is yours throughout the entire semester. So, you can come in every week and take up where you left off.

Over 100 looms! Many of them were floor looms, a few table looms, most were jack, one tapestry, and every one of them with a project in some part of the process! Yeah! Weavers ranged from beginners to the more experienced who don't have room or time at home to work on looms, and enjoy the dedicated time each week. The teachers were knowledgeable and all were so friendly to this loom-sick visitor from Missouri!

It is so nice to talk weaving! I can well understand why some people take this class for years in a row. It's like a weekly guild meeting, and indeed, I was told that most of the people in the class also belong to the same guild.

I'll be heading back to the Midwest in a little over a week now. I'm starting to feel like time is getting short. I have a list in my head of things I want to be sure to make food-wise before I go. I will certainly miss these guys. I have enjoyed cooking for them and being part of their days.

I have no idea what condition my water pipes will be in when I get home, but you know what, I know how to repair plastic water pipe! First-weekend-home plans? Warping both looms! Yippee!

Counting the ways

Counting the ways I don't miss winter weather during my sojourn in Southern California. Back home it's supposed to be -5 with wind chill of -14 tonight. Brrrrr.

In my brief time home between trips I did start winding a warp for tea towels, which means I made time to sit down with my chosen colors and a piece of graph paper to work out stripe sizes and color progressions. That's a fun part for me. Sometimes it's a one-cup-of-tea warp and sometimes it takes several sittings to figure it all out, but it ends up done. I like being able to look back at past plans, too. If I particularly like how a stripe pattern turned out, I can substitute colors and duplicate it in a future warp. No reason to re-invent the wheel, you know. I think most weavers have archives of project plans. I have several notebooks.

I'm looking forward to getting back to weaving in February. I do miss it.