Counting Blessings and Other Thoughts...

To anyone who might be reading this, I wish the very best of new years.... as this year of 2011 is coming to a close, I am counting the many blessings that came my way.  On a very small scale, I do this every morning, as I'm making my plans for the day, and again in the evening as I am assessing how I filled the day.  I might have cleaned out the silverware drawer or maybe I created a new fabric that has surprised me.  But, to assess a year..... this takes time!

Looking back on accomplishments is so good to do!   While it always spurs me to do better or do more.... not in a critical way...but...it amends me somehow to want to grow from each experience.  I suspect this is the essence of the human experience, yes?

How do you picture a year?  The most recent is our White Christmas....

This was a photo of our first snow...this is the little snow.  I sent this photo to our state-wide weather guy in Albuquerque and he put it on the air!  What funfunfun to see that!  It was more fun to look out my east-side studio door and have this beautiful scene.  It's especially lovely from inside my wonderfully warm studio with the stove going, the fire flickering and dancing and the music echoing throughout .....aaaaaaaaaah!  THEN we had the BIG snow on December 23rd which put us on the national news....our state has more snow than any other state in America right now.  It's such a blessing because we've been so very, very dry.  We had several feet of snow and, being raised in Texas places, it was a true wonderment to me.

Then there's the holiday celebration!

Jim took this photo and I think it's gorgeous!  I am proud to say that, this year, I had the lights up before the first of December!  I've never had my act so very together....I hope I can do it again next year!  These light will stay up until New Year's Day!

All of these are happy photos for me and they match the happiness that I seem to have found this year.  Perhaps it found me, perhaps my relentless search for it helped.  This has definitely been one of the happiest holidays I have had in many years.  I've found a way to finally set down a deep and quiet sadness that was just too heavy to continue to carry....and, in so doing, I'm giving it all up to the heavens.

God, give me the strength to change that which I can change.
God, give me the grace to accept the things that I cannot change.
God give me the wisdom to know the difference.


In these words, that we all know so well, can be found the happiness... yes, the emotional rest.... that has eluded me for so very long a time.

Everything is going well in weaving even though I haven't actually sat at a loom for about a month... holidays and well, I had an opening planned for December 23 and....well ....have you ever tried to have an opening in a snow storm?  Well, I tried, because I try very hard to do something if I say I'm going to do it... needless to say, nobody came, not a soul.  But, I got a LOT of work done and I have finally made signs that are easy to put out along Chestnut in my little village, so people can actually find me from Highway 60....those signs looked great, were easy to put in and take away, and I'm glad I'll have them ready for summer...they each had a balloon attached to aid in visibility.  Then, with Jim's help, I have a new highway sign that fits over the top of my purrrrrrrrrmanent Creations sign to add the message 'open today', also with balloons attached and it worked well, too.  For years I have wanted to have these signs for summer when I like to just have a little "Open Today" message out there for vacationers and passersby.  I must say, the most fascinating thing I learned was that, even in freezing weather, balloons will stay inflated!  Okay, it's silly, I guess, but I wondered if they would burst because the moisture in my breath would freeze, right?  Well, now I know!

But, yes, designs were completed, strategies were planned, weft thread was ordered and received, even a weaving schedule was written...it is really a good time in weaving...Stanley will be working very hard this entire January, as I only have a month to weave a very special yardage that I want to submit for consideration in HGA's Convergence Yardage Exhibit called "Longitude".  How appropriate can that name be?!?  My thoughts immediately go to latitude or weft or even freedom to plan!  Then I see that grid upon the earth, in our mind's eye anyway, and how similar the two are to the warp and weft grid in which we weavers dream... plan....work...all the time.  They both can bring such order to places that seem to have none.

Here, at right, is my "order"...
How this for a grid?


Oh, I didn't mention yet the good lessons I'm learning on Hazle.  In a previous post, I've mentioned the fabric that I wanted to weave on her for Convergence.  Well...it just hasn't worked out.  I've made several attempts, so far, and will continue to try to create what I see in my head.  I still see the 8-Harness Bronson Lace in my "Squash Blossom & Beetle" design floating on an iridescent background fabric of ever-changing colors...  I think I don't have to right 'lace weft' that I need.  I will keep trying....and I will create it some day.

I have met with a surprising success on Hazle when I wove with 2 shuttles, contrasting colors of rayon, one similar to the tencel and silk warp. The mixture of this light-as-air fabric made a heavenly light, fluid fabric.

           
The photo at left shows the work with matching weft and warp...

But, when combining a dark and light weft, with the lace weft being the dark one, a fascinating effect takes place that makes the "back" of the fabric looking just wonderful!

I wove many yards of this fabric before my show schedule started for 2011, and I only have about a 1/2 yard left!  I plan to do much more of this fabric with different colors.  And I want to pursue this concept much further!  And this fabric feels so yummy, I can "feel" it from the photo!

I have a little one-day show...or should I say a six-hour show coming up in February of 2012.  I have never gone to this show/event before.  I will be offering my yardages (and some white-on-white stoles and scarves) to fiber artists.  I have no idea how it will go, but I am hoping that some of those incredibly creative folks will be interested in adding my cloth to their artistic journeys .  They are so talented, knowledgeable, FEARLESS, they have such sophistication in what they do.

This show is in Kerrville, Texas and I can hardly wait!  I'm weaving bleached white and natural whites in cottons, cotton and silk blends, and the natural honey color of the tencel and silk with white silk weft.  I'll also be offering dark colored fabrics that would be good for resist and stamping, just as a start.  I can imagine so many possibilities and I hope they might see them, too!

I hope you are enjoyed your holidays!

I'm wishing you the happiest of A Happy New Year!

And, I hope you are enjoying your winter.... whatever it may be!



Thanks so much for reading, enrich yourself with nature's wonder, stay warm.

I'm sending Miles and Miles of Smiles,  Cat B.