With a little help from my friends

Well, it's been a while hasn't it?

Yesterday I taught an Introduction to Tapestry workshop for some wonderful and talented folks at Reynolds Homestead. This was the first time I taught this particular topic, and I'm still pretty new to tapestry myself, so saying that my stress level leading up to the class was a little high would be entirely accurate.

But it went really well! At least I think it did. So before I write about the class and post some photos I want to thank everyone who made this possible and helped me keep what's left of my sanity.

• First of course, my husband Eric, who endured less than stellar meals and housekeeping for the past month, and who was very supportive, as he always is.
• My friends Darcy and Karen, who let me use them as guinea pigs and gave very good suggestions for making the class go more smoothly.
• My pal Lawre, who always offers good perspective and encouragement, and who can find some humor in almost every situation.
• Otto Strauch who has at least one of every tool known to mankind and knew just what to do to make the little loom legs.

I'd also like to send a shout-out to Caroline, who's idea this was in the first place;  Mary Kay who got everything organized and kept us on track; and the nice ladies at Yarn Explosion in Roanoke who patiently let me rummage through their Paternayan and Brown Sheep tapestry yarns.

It really was a fun day, and I learned so much myself preparing for the class!  As soon as I've recovered, I'll post some pics.

The beans progress. The bubble remains.

Lest you think I've been idle for the past two weeks, here is an update on the tapestry.

The beans progress. The bubble remains.

Oh, there's been the usual fits of unweaving and reweaving and unweaving again, but all in all I think it's coming along ok. The egglplant is in sight now, and I'm looking forward to weaving with purple yarn, just for a change of pace.

In other news, I have a new weaving student to look forward to beginning in February. New weavers are always so much fun. All that enthusiasm is contagious.

The thought of having company out in the TeaShanty prompted me to clean and rearrange the studio a bit. I thought it would be nice if she actually had space to sit at a loom. It took me two and a half days, and there's still a little bit of putting away to do. It occurs to me that I might have too much stuff.

Part of the stuff includes too much yarn (of course), tools, books, and twenty-eight years worth of weaving samples - mine and other peoples. You know, guild sample exchanges, samples from workshops, and that sort of thing. Some of them are lovely little snippets, others are less attractive. Unlike some people who are avid and enthusiastic samplers, and swear that they are the most useful things in the world, I rarely look at mine and almost never find them helpful. Every once in a while I think about just throwing them away. But that just seems wrong somehow.

I've got them all in binders now, labeled. And I've sorted out the worksheets and samples of things that I've done myself into a separate notebook. I guess I'll hang on to them for a while longer. Perhaps my new student will find something there of interest....