Making

Widening my fiber world

Widening my fiber world

Last week my #studiofriday was actually Wednesday and Thursday at Interweave’s YarnFest. Since I live just down the road and I’ve always wanted to take a class from these particular teachers, this was the year. I didn’t have the time to teach this year, but I made the time to take two classes.

Wednesday was Spinning Nordic Wools with Kate Larson. Kate is a spinner and shepherdess and the editor of Spin Off magazine. She is also a fantastic knitter, embroiderer, and I’d guess she has a few other talents up her sleeve as well. I have taught at the same conference as Kate a few times and always wished I was in her class. I was so glad I made the time to take this one and that there was one space left!

Spinning is magic to me. Before I learned to spin I just bought the yarn I had been taught to use. I still use that yarn for my largest tapestries, but spinning has led me into a love affair with yarn. When you start to understand how yarn is made and to gain the skills to make the yarn you want yourself, the world opens up. There is nothing more satisfying than taking a lovely stinky fleece through all the steps to make and dye the yarn and weave it into a tapestry. It is magic.

Analog. Our brains design better in analog.

Analog. Our brains design better in analog.

I know you might not believe it (what with my youthful glow), but computers as a personal device did not exist when I was a kid. I was born in the 70s and as a pre-teen I received an electric typewriter for my birthday along with a typing course on 45 rpm records. And yes, I had a red plastic record player in my room on which I mostly played a Tchaikovsky record of Swan Lake. I learned to type in a flash. I loved those exercises. Whole pages of unintelligible jibberish which quickly taught my brain where all the letters were. I can’t imagine not being able to touch type. I still remember the hum of the electric typewriter and the clunk of each key being pressed.

Studio Fridays

Studio Fridays

In yesterday’s blog post I talked about my focus on writing my book for the next four months. I came to that under pressure of deadline and with some wise words from Liz Gipson, aka the YarnWorker.

Another good artist friend said something to me over the holiday break that really stuck because it was said so honestly and with a genuine intention to help me see myself better. She said,

Just pick one right now

Just pick one right now

I have lots of ideas. There is never a span of time where I don’t have forty-five things I could choose to do right that moment. At least a handful of them at any one time are projects that I feel are important and need to be done as soon as possible.

Being creative and having lots of exciting things to work on is not a bad thing. But it does lead me to feel discouraged from time to time. Because I try to say yes to it all, I often don’t finish one thing for a very long time.

Yarn-mas: winter adventures and a congregation of knitted creatures

Yarn-mas: winter adventures and a congregation of knitted creatures

I had a bit of a vacation over the holidays. A few days in my hometown of Gallup, New Mexico and some time high in the Collegiate Peaks area of Colorado. I laughed with my family and friends, took leisurely walks in the desert, snowshoed in the mountains, and while chatting, doing puzzles, and playing games, I knitted. With all that time around kitchen tables I probably could have knit half a sweater. But I didn’t. Instead I made a gaggle of tiny creatures.*

The chickens were my favorite. They showed up everywhere and eventually a gang of punk-rock chickens appeared.

The best Christmas Tree ever

The best Christmas Tree ever

When I was a kid, my father had an ongoing joke every. single. year. He threatened to paint a Christmas tree on a white window shade* To decorate the tree, all you had to do was grasp the bar at the bottom of the shade firmly and pull down. At the end of the season, grasp the same bar, give a sharp downward tug and let go and the shade would roll up.

Needless to say neither me or my sister thought this was funny. And every year Dad stuck a real tree in a stand. In later years they were trees in pots from the nursery which were planted after Christmas in the back yard and all died about two months later.

Maybe this suggestion that real trees were a lot of work when brought inside the house has stuck with me. Or maybe I’m just fundamentally lazy. But a real tree has not found its way inside my house since I left home.**

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Colors of fall: writing retreats and fall colors

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Colors of fall: writing retreats and fall colors

I spent a week working in a friend’s timeshare last week (thank you Kristy!). I got a lot of writing done and I even participated in Spinzilla. I spent some time hiking including one trek into Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are a few of my explorations.

I wrote a lot on my next project. Having time away from the studio and all other distractions of daily life is a good way for me to get a lot done. I’m working at creating this in my own office, but I’m not quite there yet.

It turns out, spinning is a good way to jog your brain free when it feels a little blocked and I think a good companion to writing.