This and that again!

In the last 2.5 weeks since I updated this blog so many things have happened. Some great, some sad, much of very wonderful and sometimes overwhelming. Of course, very little of it has been weaving on my piece or perhaps in time it all does have to with my weaving.

I redid my handouts for my Colour and Movement workshop that I presented in durango. I had over 400 slides to do put into Power Point-not as bad as it sounds because a third of those were in two animations that take less then 1.5 minutes to show. It's a relief to know that the outline of the book works. Now all I have to do is finish the warping book with Pat and finish Colour Movement in Tapestry. It's a relief I never have to deal with slides again for these lectures and all the mishaps that can happen with slide trays.

My class in Durango at IWC was interesting, fascinating and wonderful to teach. I was able to put more faces to people I have dialogued with for years on the tapestry list. Durango is beautiful, but the altitude is a little too high for comfort for my comfort, but I woould go back in a heartbeat. I am used to moving and walking fast. It was hard to slow down enough to speak or get anywhere very fast. Many of the students I taught this week were extremely good tapestry weavers. Several of my students won prizes in Fiber Celebrated 2009- Rebecca Metzloff, Lynn Hart and Barbara Schwarz. I won an ATA a ward for one of my pieces in the show.

An incredible thing happened I have never won anything. I did this time. I won a huge basket of yarn books and tools thanks to several people in my class. I had asked that they just take the money and give it to the people in charge of the raffle because I never win, but wanted to donate to the scholarship fund and didn't have the time or the energy to walk over to the SW study building. Lynn and cohorts-thank you one and all-took the time to go through the baskets to make sure there were no cameliad fibers and put my raffle tickets in the proper place and I won!! Thank the Gods I wasn't flying! I would have had to ship or pay for the basket.So thank the afflebathcans and camelheads to mention a few of the many mangled words in the class. You all know who you are that helped me along with the mangles.

Lynn, I thought of another way to do the rib structure on the saguaro-do reverse double weft interlock so it's ridge structure and reverse ridging shows on the front of the tapestry.

Spencer and I had incredible experiences. The silver work was all over the place. I learned so much. I have decided to design a silver bracelet watch band. I am so enthused about getting back to my torch and silver. I saw some beautifully ornate watch bands and was able to study how the watch was attached to the band.

I would love to have been able to bring home another pet. This Velociraptor looked like he might make a good watch dog. Mesa Verde and the Anasazi ruins were pretty spectacular-even if they were to high to walk down to in the heat and altitude.

Tomorrow i see Marge and now I have another new student- Dee-who will be joining us. Marge finished her piece and is now doing a tapestry of Saint Michael's in Sitka. We searched for historical photos to base the tapestry on. Marge wanted the Church and area surrounding the church to look the way she remembered it in the 40's. The cartoon has the church and the trees on the mountains in the background poking through the snow. We haven't decided how we will weave the clapboard sides.

I leave for Maryland/DC on the first of September. I have from now to then to weave. This is the slowest time of the year for FFP, which is fine/great for me and my plans to weave. This time I will finish the piece I emant to finish a month ago.

While i was gone the temperature was 108 officially and 110 at my Dad's small weather station in Portland. A little too much for old cats and older people. For those of you who know my cats. Captain Jack died of old age. We all knew it was coming. It was still a shock not to hear his rumbling purr when we got home. He was a 20 year old Maine Coon that never met a person who didn't love him or he them. Pye is devastated and is continually looking for Jack. She hates to be alone. We will probably sometime this winter and after I had some time to miss Captain Jack get another Maine Coon. They are lovable and large.

My new garden turned into a jungle. I maybe should have cut the compost with a little pit of dirt. I ahve never seen such tall tomatoes with so many bloosoms. It makes me feel like I walked into a sci-fi novel.

I fell in love with hoodoo's while I was traveling. Actually, I didn't know what they were until after Lynn and an old Navajo women I met in a restaurant in Cortez told me about them. From then on every time I would see a hoodoo I would see people and totems. It got to the point it was really spooky-maybe not spooky put connected to some thing which Idon't know what is. One of the nicest things that happened on the trip was to be able to really see things that i have been studying for years from pictures, books and lectures. One of the ways we choose where and what we would see was often chosen from books and novels that Spencer and I had read. Spencer wanted to see the places that the outlaws, Indians, Zane Grey and all hung out in his readings. Some of the places I wanted to see had been described in novels, paintings, and historical text that i had read over the years.

And of course, I took hundreds of pictures to use as colour studies when I weave.

Enuff for now. I am going to go weave.

By the way Marge. The pictures I took of your Penguins turned out great. I just remembered why I can't find my camera. I left it on your bookcase.

Cheers and all,

kathe