I wrote this several weeks ago and decided I'd add pictures later...
This week has been beautiful weather. It is getting cool and the leaves are changing. Also, my overbooked fall is also coming to an end, after this week my schedule has really slowed down, just in time for the holidays!
Today was the memorial service for a student and friend, that alone makes it a retrospective day, but the beautiful mountains also added to my calm.
I had several great opportunities this fall and so I was busy making the commitments. After a break of a couple weeks, I started the fall classes. Then I realized that all my Saturdays in September and October we committed to different places. I started the first week with a great Weaver's guild meeting the first week in September, we had a wonderful dye class. We got 16 colors using 8 baggies and two dyes. We used 4 different percentages of the first dye color and then we over-dyed with four percentages of the second dye color. We then had a wonderful collection of related colors. I shared the dye process, so I only have a small ball of each color, but I can knit a hat or weave a scarf from them. Best of all I had a great time with my guild friends.
The next week I was sitting a booth at the Farmer's Market for the Craft House and my beginning weaving class also started. The Farmer's Market has been a great opportunity to get exposure for the classes the we teach at the Craft House, this Saturday, we even had a kick-wheel for demonstrating pottery!
Classes continued the next week and I had a booth at the Norse Fest at the local museum. This is were I have a piece in their "hallway" show in conjunction with the Swedish Viking show. I was explaining Viking weaving and showing my weaving and selling. I had my Baby Wolf and we were VERY busy. The museum got a larger attendance than anticipated. It was a successful sell for me and I was very tired when it was over. I got some passes and my sisters brought Mom to see me and the show. There were several booths with various Scandinavian arts and crafts. The next day I also had a commitment to sit a booth at the Gem Fair...it was a very busy weekend.
Two days later, we headed out for vacation. The four of us, me and hubby and the two adult children, flew back east to see some new country for us and visit family. We flew into Boston and spend a day riding the "T" and walking around until we were dead tired. We, of course, also ate all of the local specialties that we could and my husband and son got to see ships. None of the four of us had spent any time in this part of the country so we all were excited to see everything and had only enough time to see a little.
The second day, we went a little south to Plymouth, MA. I was very interested in seeing the history and pilgrim life. I really enjoyed the plantation (it has been there since 1950) and the food in the city was again great. The city of Plymouth does not have any "chain" restaurants, so all the food was local and wonderful. I had clam chowder that I really liked. My clam chowder is great, but with fresh clams, this chowder was wonderful. I need to "up my game" and find fresh clams here in the desert...it does not sound easy!
We then headed up to Vermont and New Hampshire to see the fall colors, unfortunately they had only just started changing and we mostly saw green. We drove around back roads and found a bunch of covered bridges to take pictures of, but my photographer son said the light was not good and there were too many power lines to get good pictures. I thought is was fun to see the bridges some very old and some new, but built to look old.
It was overcast and light rain the next day and we decided to travel back to Massachusetts to go to Salem. My daughter was excited to see the "witches" town and as we were there in October...every weekend is a big celebration. On the way to Salem, I got to stop in Harrisville, to see the mill, and in Lowell to see where the big mill towns started. Both places were very interesting to me and even my family found it interesting. At Lowell, there was a women explaining how weaving is done and, of course, my family had no need of that demonstration...they see it every day! The old looms working were noisy and very fun to see.
The next day we reached the main reason for our trip, we got to Cape Elizabeth and got to visit with our niece and nephew. We were able to spend several days with them and since we got there on a weekend, my nephew had the day off and they got to show us around a bit. The place we stopped for Lobster Rolls, Red's, was crazy, they had a line around the block, so we skipped it and went to Booth Bay to see a beautiful coast town. It was a tourist town, but not as busy as some and we had great food, walked around to see things and looked for treasure. Their son is four, and is always looking for treasure and treasure maps (the tourist town maps). The day was great and I was so happy to get to spend time with them.
By time we were flying home, I was tired and the five hours in the plane gave me a bit of claustrophobia. I haven't experienced that for a while.
I got home just in time to teach a class at the Natural History Museum. I ended up with over twenty students, but they were all adults...I had thought that I would have a mix of adult and children. The class was good, but again I was really tired when it was over.
That brings us to this week, it started off great with our first opera of the season. They started off with La Boheme and it was a wonderful production. I had three private lessons, and I started the beginning rigid heddle class Saturday.
There really has been a lot happening, I guess there really is a reason why I was so stressed in August.
This week has been beautiful weather. It is getting cool and the leaves are changing. Also, my overbooked fall is also coming to an end, after this week my schedule has really slowed down, just in time for the holidays!
Today was the memorial service for a student and friend, that alone makes it a retrospective day, but the beautiful mountains also added to my calm.
I had several great opportunities this fall and so I was busy making the commitments. After a break of a couple weeks, I started the fall classes. Then I realized that all my Saturdays in September and October we committed to different places. I started the first week with a great Weaver's guild meeting the first week in September, we had a wonderful dye class. We got 16 colors using 8 baggies and two dyes. We used 4 different percentages of the first dye color and then we over-dyed with four percentages of the second dye color. We then had a wonderful collection of related colors. I shared the dye process, so I only have a small ball of each color, but I can knit a hat or weave a scarf from them. Best of all I had a great time with my guild friends.
The next week I was sitting a booth at the Farmer's Market for the Craft House and my beginning weaving class also started. The Farmer's Market has been a great opportunity to get exposure for the classes the we teach at the Craft House, this Saturday, we even had a kick-wheel for demonstrating pottery!
Classes continued the next week and I had a booth at the Norse Fest at the local museum. This is were I have a piece in their "hallway" show in conjunction with the Swedish Viking show. I was explaining Viking weaving and showing my weaving and selling. I had my Baby Wolf and we were VERY busy. The museum got a larger attendance than anticipated. It was a successful sell for me and I was very tired when it was over. I got some passes and my sisters brought Mom to see me and the show. There were several booths with various Scandinavian arts and crafts. The next day I also had a commitment to sit a booth at the Gem Fair...it was a very busy weekend.
Two days later, we headed out for vacation. The four of us, me and hubby and the two adult children, flew back east to see some new country for us and visit family. We flew into Boston and spend a day riding the "T" and walking around until we were dead tired. We, of course, also ate all of the local specialties that we could and my husband and son got to see ships. None of the four of us had spent any time in this part of the country so we all were excited to see everything and had only enough time to see a little.
The second day, we went a little south to Plymouth, MA. I was very interested in seeing the history and pilgrim life. I really enjoyed the plantation (it has been there since 1950) and the food in the city was again great. The city of Plymouth does not have any "chain" restaurants, so all the food was local and wonderful. I had clam chowder that I really liked. My clam chowder is great, but with fresh clams, this chowder was wonderful. I need to "up my game" and find fresh clams here in the desert...it does not sound easy!
We then headed up to Vermont and New Hampshire to see the fall colors, unfortunately they had only just started changing and we mostly saw green. We drove around back roads and found a bunch of covered bridges to take pictures of, but my photographer son said the light was not good and there were too many power lines to get good pictures. I thought is was fun to see the bridges some very old and some new, but built to look old.
It was overcast and light rain the next day and we decided to travel back to Massachusetts to go to Salem. My daughter was excited to see the "witches" town and as we were there in October...every weekend is a big celebration. On the way to Salem, I got to stop in Harrisville, to see the mill, and in Lowell to see where the big mill towns started. Both places were very interesting to me and even my family found it interesting. At Lowell, there was a women explaining how weaving is done and, of course, my family had no need of that demonstration...they see it every day! The old looms working were noisy and very fun to see.
The next day we reached the main reason for our trip, we got to Cape Elizabeth and got to visit with our niece and nephew. We were able to spend several days with them and since we got there on a weekend, my nephew had the day off and they got to show us around a bit. The place we stopped for Lobster Rolls, Red's, was crazy, they had a line around the block, so we skipped it and went to Booth Bay to see a beautiful coast town. It was a tourist town, but not as busy as some and we had great food, walked around to see things and looked for treasure. Their son is four, and is always looking for treasure and treasure maps (the tourist town maps). The day was great and I was so happy to get to spend time with them.
By time we were flying home, I was tired and the five hours in the plane gave me a bit of claustrophobia. I haven't experienced that for a while.
I got home just in time to teach a class at the Natural History Museum. I ended up with over twenty students, but they were all adults...I had thought that I would have a mix of adult and children. The class was good, but again I was really tired when it was over.
That brings us to this week, it started off great with our first opera of the season. They started off with La Boheme and it was a wonderful production. I had three private lessons, and I started the beginning rigid heddle class Saturday.
There really has been a lot happening, I guess there really is a reason why I was so stressed in August.