Yes, I'm still here

Yes, I am still here.  Today I think I am at the end of a nasty cold, the kind where you can't look at the floor without dripping onto your feet.  Ick. 

It's raining tonight and that will turn to snow either tonight or early tomorrow.  But the fact that storms start generally with rain now means that spring is certainly on its way.  I knew it would happen--sometimes it was hard to believe in it, but I knew it would come.  The winter aconites are in full bloom now, ditto the snow drops and the shoots of daffodils are up about three inches (~7.5 cm. with those of you who follow a more rational system).

I finished the blue/violet scarves and then did a job for a local couple.  While I was in the middle of it someone called and during our conversation she asked what I was doing these days.  "I am sewing a sleeve onto a rug," said I.  A long silence followed until I said "as a hanging device for a Navajo rug".  She was thinking of a sleeve like that in a garment;  I could almost hear the ????s through the telephone! It turns out that the man who was my daughter's orthodontist when she was in her early teens--now long retired--had worked at Mt. Ranier Park at a concessionaire during the summer when he was 17.  At the end of the summer he used his pay to buy a Navajo rug which he has had for 70 years.  His wife wants to hang it for him so that they can see it from their bed so that he can enjoy it.  How many 17 year old boys that YOU know would do that?

For many years his wife was the head of the Utah Arts Council which is how I know her and when she wanted to hang it up she thought I would be sensitive to the textile and know of a way to do it that would be the least damaging.  I am very fond of both of them so I did some research and did the job for them.  I still find myself chuckling about the rug with a sleeve appended to it.  Can you imagine it?

I am working on pieces for a show in June at the gallery that represents me.  The pieces are all double woven using cotton sewing thread.  Sometimes I brocade silk on the surface and sometimes I add other things but in the end all are framed by my sewing them to acid-free mat board and then framed so that the glass does not touch the fabric.  They are all about color  with as many colors as I can get and take a LOT of time. 

The warp I am getting onto the loom right now has over 1600 warp ends and I am very happy with what I am seeing so far.  I finished threading before bed last night and today have been involved in Sunday activities and went to a pot luck (we meet once a month) which was fun.  (I took a chicken/broccoli quiche.  I brought home an empty baking dish)  I have done laundry and am about to finish the week's ironing so I can start drawing the warp through the reed.

Yes, when there is something to show, I will post photographs.