Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Home again!

I am home from the teaching trip to California.  I had a great class, wonderful women, with some lovely fabrics designed.  All of them were very different and none a copy of anything I had showed them.  I count it a success when each person comes up with something that is distinctly her own.

You will recall that they were all designing fabrics to use to make Daryl Lancaster's simple cardigan jacket.  The jacket may be cut to waist length or lower, has set in sleeves and a cardigan style opening in front bound with a band that runs from bottom front up around the neck and down to the other side.  One of the participants, (Paula), had never woven on a floor loom before and did very well.  Once a floor loom is available to her all the time--this one was borrowed--she will be able to do whatever she wants.  I predict a rosy future for this weaver!

I really wish I were going to be a fly on the wall of the workshop in six months where Daryl leads them through the construction of their jackets.  There is going to be some gorgeous cloth there!

It rained all the time that I was there, hailed big time one night.  I was sleeping under a big skylight which magnified the sound of the hail at 3 AM one morning.  I thought, "Well, this is the acid test of the skylight" halfway expecting that if it didn't break it would leak at least.  But, happily, it did neither and once I walked off the cramp in my left calf I was able to go back to sleep.

I missed seeing some of my favorite people in the Black Sheep Weavers (Carolyn, Rosemary, Kathleen) but saw some others (Caryl, Tien and Gloria) and met some I did not know before who became favorite people.  I worked hard and had fun.

On Monday I got to do a little bird watching with Caryl, visited Thai Silks (Oh, what a dangerous place!) and then went to see Caryl's husband Dave at Google where we had lunch in the employee cafeteria and I got a tour.  One does not wander into Google; one must be sponsored, in effect, and accompanied by the employee, check in and wear a stick-on badge.  I wore mine proudly on the plane later that day and all the way home.  It is now stuck to the castle of my Macomber to remind me of the tour.  I had to promise not to pass on any secrets I learned while there but since I didn't learn any secrets, there is no problem  I was excited to be there.

The campus is very big and there are bikes everywhere painted in the Google colors to ride from building to building.  I can tell you that if you work there you can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on the premises (no charge) and also do your laundry without ever leaving.  The whole idea, I gather, is to make it easy to stay at work so you can put in long hours and create wonderful, new things that those of us with computers enjoy using.

Now I am at home and about to finish the warp of cotton sewing thread.  I know what I will add to the group of colors I showed you last time but first things first.  Onward!

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