As we ease into Autumn, I am trying to see what I did the past summer. I know that things were busy, and I know there were some thyroid problems causing me to be a little down, but overall it was pretty good.
My daughter joined a local Cambodian dance group. She was in long enough to do one performance. I had fun going to the festival and eating well, then seeing my daughter with the dance group.
I also went to the local Tulip festival with her. I enjoy my adult children and I love flowers.
As a family we camped in Arches National Park. This is an area that we have been to many times, but it has been several years since we were able to camp in the park. It was a great time and being in the "red rock country" refreshes my soul.
My sisters took mom for a weekend away. We visited her old family home, and a cousin that she grew up with. It was a great time for her and I think we managed to not wear her out too much.
I taught another video classes with Curious Mondo. I enjoy the classes, but it is a lot of work to get all the equipment set up and moved to the studio. I am still working on emptying a couple of the four looms that I set up for the class.
July was two weeks in Reno with the weaver's conferences. I had not been to Convergence for quite a few years. I always enjoyed this conference, but it is expensive. For the years when I worked in the weaving store the manager would always go and I ran the store while she was gone. Now that Convergence and Complex Weaver's are in the same city I can go to both. I took a great workshop from Robyn Spady and it jump started my interest in parallel threading and "echo" weave. I followed her instructions and then when I got home, I used the great book "Echo and Iris" to get some additional treadlings on the sample. I want to continue my exploration in this direction. My problem is that between teaching, commissions and life I don't seem to have the energy to do my own projects! I always found the fashion show wonderful. It used to be mostly wild runway pieces, but this fashion show had many pieces of clothing that we could wear in regular life.
Three conferences ago, I went to my first Complex Weaver's. I loved this group of sharing women, and loved feeling like there was so much more I wanted to learn. These women are doing some things that I don't have the equipment or interest in, but they challenge me to try new things and explore places in weaving that I hadn't tried before. I decided at that first conference that I would try to attend it every time. I may not be able to always attend, but I love that thought of going and learning new things, and looking at weaving in new ways.
This was a great experience that I had looked forward to for a few months. I loved hanging out with several hundred weavers...my tribe.
We had a fall trip to Yellowstone National Park scheduled, but between Reno and Yellowstone, I had a commission to weave 19 rugs.
I put 24 yards of wool rug warp on the Macomber loom at Pioneer Craft House and used a lot of it for these rugs. I have an additional four rugs to weave for a second rug commission and that should use all the rug warp. These rugs are alpaca corespun yarn, quite fast to weave because they are 4 to 5 ppi.
Our Yellowstone trip was fun, I had not been there of several years. We decided to not worry about cooking all the meals, so we just planned to eat at the lodges part of the time.. That turned out to be a good decision, because we had evening and night rain a couple of days and no one felt like cooking in that weather. There are so many places to eat there it was no problem. My favorite was the Yellowstone Hotel, I want to go back and stay there.
We have been doing a lot this summer, but somehow I feel that I have not been keeping up with things that I am supposed to be doing. I need to learn to enjoy what I am able to do and let go of those things that I don't get to.
My daughter joined a local Cambodian dance group. She was in long enough to do one performance. I had fun going to the festival and eating well, then seeing my daughter with the dance group.
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| The only non-Asian in the group. |
As a family we camped in Arches National Park. This is an area that we have been to many times, but it has been several years since we were able to camp in the park. It was a great time and being in the "red rock country" refreshes my soul.
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| Our Campsite with the table, our tent and son's ten |
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| We also checked out the Black Dragon Petroglyph in the San Rafael Swell. |
My sisters took mom for a weekend away. We visited her old family home, and a cousin that she grew up with. It was a great time for her and I think we managed to not wear her out too much.
I taught another video classes with Curious Mondo. I enjoy the classes, but it is a lot of work to get all the equipment set up and moved to the studio. I am still working on emptying a couple of the four looms that I set up for the class.
July was two weeks in Reno with the weaver's conferences. I had not been to Convergence for quite a few years. I always enjoyed this conference, but it is expensive. For the years when I worked in the weaving store the manager would always go and I ran the store while she was gone. Now that Convergence and Complex Weaver's are in the same city I can go to both. I took a great workshop from Robyn Spady and it jump started my interest in parallel threading and "echo" weave. I followed her instructions and then when I got home, I used the great book "Echo and Iris" to get some additional treadlings on the sample. I want to continue my exploration in this direction. My problem is that between teaching, commissions and life I don't seem to have the energy to do my own projects! I always found the fashion show wonderful. It used to be mostly wild runway pieces, but this fashion show had many pieces of clothing that we could wear in regular life.
Three conferences ago, I went to my first Complex Weaver's. I loved this group of sharing women, and loved feeling like there was so much more I wanted to learn. These women are doing some things that I don't have the equipment or interest in, but they challenge me to try new things and explore places in weaving that I hadn't tried before. I decided at that first conference that I would try to attend it every time. I may not be able to always attend, but I love that thought of going and learning new things, and looking at weaving in new ways.
This was a great experience that I had looked forward to for a few months. I loved hanging out with several hundred weavers...my tribe.
We had a fall trip to Yellowstone National Park scheduled, but between Reno and Yellowstone, I had a commission to weave 19 rugs.
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| Four 3' x 5' rugs |
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| Fourteen 2' x 3' rugs |
Our Yellowstone trip was fun, I had not been there of several years. We decided to not worry about cooking all the meals, so we just planned to eat at the lodges part of the time.. That turned out to be a good decision, because we had evening and night rain a couple of days and no one felt like cooking in that weather. There are so many places to eat there it was no problem. My favorite was the Yellowstone Hotel, I want to go back and stay there.
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| On our way to breakfast after early morning bison watching. |
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| Baby bison |