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.

We're in the purple... and a great knitting resource.

Yes! I'm finally weaving the eggplant. Also, lots of tan background.

You probably can't see it in this photo, but I'm blending three shades of tan in the background in various combinations. I'm also weaving random "shapes" with the colors so that, hopefully, the background won't read as one flat color, but will have more visual "texture".

Due to the wretched state of my sinuses, I only had one afternoon out in the studio this weekend. Most of that time I was doing some prep work for an introduction to tapestry class I'll be teaching at Reynolds Homestead at the end of March.

I've started on a sampler for the class, using leftover yarn from the bean tapestry. Now that I'm looking at it though, I think the colors are dull as dishwater. Perhaps I'll start again. I'm working on my Schacht Tapestry Loom for the first time. It wasn't dreadful to warp, and I've skipped the part about making heddles entirely. It's a 4 inch warp, so picking up my shed by hand isn't the least bit bothersome. I'm doing it on the bean tapestry so plenty of practice there.

In other news, I've been working on a little knitting project. Kirtland's Yarn Barn in Dillwyn, VA is participating in a project to knit helmet liners for our troops in Afghanistan. My friend Lawre already has hers done, and I'm plugging away on mine. There was a tricky bit (for me, anyway) after doing the neck ribbing where you cast on extra stitches for the hat part. No matter how I did it, it looked really bad. So off to Google I went and found this wonderful explanation of casting on additional stitches at TECHknitting. What a great resource this blog is! Especially for knitting-challenged people like me.