The piece on my loom right now is a commission for a couple's home. Managing a commission demands some organization and I am fairly good at this. What I'm not as good at is estimating how much time the accumulated tasks on my calendar are going to take. Oh sure, I can come up with a fairly good estimate of how many hours creating a certain piece of art will take me. I can also estimate how long it'll take me to rebuild my website or do my accounting for the month or answer Monday's emails. 

What I can't seem to do effectively is ADD. I might have a separate number for all those things in my head, but when I add 2 + 3 + 4 hours, I tend to get 5 instead of 9. So though I'm sure that I can shoot six videos, weave a foot on the big tapestry, and manage all the online teaching in a week, the chances of that actually happening are really zero... due to that addition thing. (And perhaps my eternal sense of optimism.)

Weaving on a portable loom. I can take it camping and even backpacking. It fits in my purse if I have a long evening of babysitting my nieces ahead of me and it is a great companion for road trips especially when I'm not driving. I have been messing around with these Hokett looms for years now and this loom got to come on a quick camping trip in northern Colorado last weekend. I think she liked the starts the most.

Proctorsville is a small town in central Vermont. After the retreat in Plymouth, I headed there to teach a two-day introductory tapestry class. Vermonters are people who can figure stuff out. Everyone in the class was pretty new to tapestry weaving, but they quickly picked up tips and were weaving before you could say bobbin.

Twelve tapestry weavers met in Plymouth, Vermont for four days of study, collaboration, and relaxation. We did a lot of laughing, eating, and weaving and I'm pretty sure we'll do it again!

I've been planning this retreat for about a year and a half. Tomorrow I am on my way. There is still a large quantity of yarn to be shoved into suitcases and some sorting of materials to do. The most important thing is the thoughtful placement of clothing for Thursday so that I don't have to lug three massive suitcases into the hotel to search among the yarn for my clean underwear. (Don't worry, I don't keep the dirty underwear there.) 

On a day trip to Dinosaur National Monument, I finally got the chance to see my tapestry, Emergence II, installed in the permanent art collection of Northwestern Colorado Community College in Craig, Colorado. I was quite taken aback at how different the piece actually is from what lives in my memory. Woven in 2010, the colors have shifted around in my head to be something quite different. 

When you fly into Memphis very late at night, Budget may well be completely out of Kias. The agent asked me (rather skeptically I might add) if I could "drive a stick." Heck yeah, I replied. Shortly thereafter I was driving away in a 2016 Ford Mustang headed for the Mississippi Delta. I was a bit self-conscious about the car. I got a lot of looks and most of them seemed to say, "hey, what is that middle-aged white lady doing driving that Mustang?" My brother-in-law did enjoy it during the ten minutes I gave him the keys. (I held my breath the whole time.)