Haircut

Around Christmas, my mom urged me to cut Hannah's bangs. But I was insistent that I didn't want to because I wanted it to grow out so that we could tuck it behind her ears, and I was afraid of going near her face with scissors. Here is a before shot just a couple weeks before. While her hair is getting longer and could be tucked behind her ears, it doesn't stay. But the reason why I finallyI gave Hannah a haircut was because she woke up Sunday morning and was whining and pushing her hair out of her eyes, and then said exasperatedly, "Hair!". It seemed like it was time.
The haircut itself was very quick--I sat her on her little stool on the counter in the bathroom and gave her two toothbrushes (both hers) to play with--one for each hand. Then before she noticed I snipped, snipped and it was done. She said "iee bee!" when she saw little bits of hair falling around her (that means "spider!"). Kelly got it on video--but we didn't get any still shots of the process. The hardest part was getting it straight when she was moving around so much--but her hair is so straight, that it made it easier.

So here is the after shot. She also chose her clothes for the day. She saw this dress that Grandma Jane made for Bri and insisted on wearing it. It will probably actually fit her when she's four. She also wanted to wear the red rain boots that were my sister's when she was a baby. Those are 35+ year-old boots!

We're getting over a virus--well, Hannah is. I think she got it from Will--though it seems like a long incubation period. Will got sick on Tuesday last week and was throwing up for a week. It was scary. Until Tuesday night, I was thinking that we had dodged the bullet since Hannah didn't get sick right away. I took Hannah to the doctor yesterday as soon as I could get her in--she threw up at midnight but then went back to sleep. They said to take her off all dairy until she's recovered. In the morning she had diarrhea, but no fever. She seems to be better already. I'm hoping today it is all gone. No vomiting last night.

Provided that Hannah is better, I'm going to the Stephanie Pearl McPhee booksigning and talk tonight at the Lodo Tattered Cover! I hope that I can get there early enough to get tickets--they only have room for 200 people. I'm packing my knitting and spinning--maybe I'll actually have time to do some while I'm waiting in line! Oh joy!

Dreams about wrapping paper

I have pretty vivid dreams every night. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they aren't. I'm reading Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing--a very fairytale-esque tale with tidbits of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, the Princess and the Frog, and Dracula--it offers a lot of material for dreams (so many gossamer dresses!)--and yet last night I had an anxiety dream about wrapping a birthday present for my niece (oh! I'm seeing a connection here--I gave Briahnna a copy of this book for her birthday!). The dream took place in a small gift shop with shelves and shelves of wrapping paper, beautiful, exotic wrapping paper and I couldn't find anything that would work. I'd reach for something thinking it was it, and then it would be different when I actually had it in my hand or it would be the wrong size. I was on the brink of tears, feeling like I wouldn't get it wrapped in time--I could hear the kids coming. And then it wasn't a shop anymore, but my sister-in-law's house (though it looked the same) and I was telling her that I'd replace whatever I used and feeling anxious about that.

Uh oh!

There was a little bit of an accident yesterday and a certain 21-month-old asked for "beads!" and an unsuspecting grandfather thought that the case was one of Hannah's toys and let her have it. Of course, as soon as she opened it (she is clever!) Granddad knew it was Mama's toy, not Hannah's. So I have a little bit of bead-clean up to do.
The bead soup that my students use in classes just got a little bigger.
I'm still working on Anne's pin. I found a bit of the silk to cover my messy stitches on the back--so I'm stitching that on. I just need to add the pin back. I lost a beading needle for a little bit in the play area--but was so relieved when I found it again. I don't want Hannah to have any negative associations with beads (or any crafts for that matter!).

Spring has sprung

After all the snow we got in December, I wasn't sure we'd see spring until June or July--but now the sun is out and tulips are bravely pushing through to greet the sun. I'm enjoying it as much as I can--since I know that (and all Coloradoans know this) we're totally going to get dumped on again--and most likely after all the buds and leaves are out. Springs tend to be in like a lamb and out like lion here. I'm resisting the urge to work in the garden because I know that those little shoots will need that compost protection for a little longer--or maybe until June. Seriously, we've had snow in June before.
Are you wondering what this next photo is? I'm making Anne's spindle pin into a pin. I couldn't resist adding a little colorful fiber from the mittens I've been making into it secretly (I guess it isn't so secret now that I've blogged about it! Oh well! It was feeling pretty secret last night). I usually add wool to my bead pieces to poof them out a little--I have a lot of wool on hand. Imagine that. The next photo is the piece nearly done--I need to add a piece of fabric to the back to cover up my messy stitches and then a pin back and I can ship it off to Anne who had the winning bid on an undesigned piece of her choice at SOAR 2006.

I'm doing some teaching this spring--maybe you're interested. I'm teaching "Make a Heart Pin" next week (Friday March 23rd) in Fort Collins, Colorado for the Fort Collins Chapter of the Embroiderer's Guild of America--contact me for details--they have a couple openings. Also, I'm teaching at Bead Expo in Oakland, California--and there are a couple spots left in the Spiral Heart Pin class--it is the same class as the one I'm teaching in Fort Collins.

Something happened to my photos in this post--so I reloaded them. And while I was doing that I added in this photo of blissed-out Lulu the cat enjoying the spring weather. You wouldn't know that she's about 14 years old by the way she runs around. Hannah says, "Lulu loud!" And it is so true. Lulu loves to talk, loudly--especially when the baby is sleeping.

Anne's Spindle Pin

I finished Anne's spindle pin--and just have to make it into a pin to send to her. Here's the photo I started with--my Adam Mielke spindle in a pile of baby alpaca. It was a challenge to convey the soft clouds of fiber with glass beads--but fun to spend time with both spinning and beading on this project. I estimated that it would take 9.65 hours to make this piece and it ended up taking a little longer--11 hours and 5 minutes. I worked on it from January 14-February 11th. I have another small piece I need to do before I start on the next bigger piece--a continuation of the spinning fates. I'm in a bit of a pickle and I need to figure out how to manage the next few months. I need to make a number of new pieces for an exhibit at my alma mater in October--but aside from the time I spend sleeping (and I do love sleeping! I'd hate to give that up) I don't know when I'm going to make them. The day job is important--not only to help provide food and shelter for my family, but also because I love it. And beading while Hannah is awake is just not possible. So I go back to the sleep thing again. Well, I'll figure this out--but if any of you have ideas, please let me know!

Felt!

I've been having fun with unspun roving lately! I've been working with Northern Lights space-dyed top from Louet. It is an unspecified wool that is 28 microns and is drafted into a narrow top and then stamped with color. When you predraft it for spinning or knitting the colors blend really nicely and look like they were handpainted. It is really easy to work with as unspun roving. I've been making samples to full. It turns out that I love making samples. I made eight swatches--four different needle sizes, two color ways, two samples for each needle size so that I could full one and keep one as the before sample.
So here you can see the two color ways worked up from left to right: US size 3, US size 6, US size 8 and US size 10 needles, with 2" ribbing, 2" stockinette, 2" garter, and 2" moss. The top samples are the fulled version. For the US size 3 version I split the top in half lengthwise before I pre-drafted the fiber.
And here are the mittens I knitted following the pattern in Ann Budd's "The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns" (and that it is!) for the next to smallest size. I haven't fulled them yet. I'm working on a pair in the lollipops colorway right now on US size 10 needles. It fits me! Same pattern, just bigger needles.

Words glorious words

We have a lot of words. I collected them this weekend. Here they are:

again, Amos (Carol's cat), Amy (Ah-me), Andy, apple, baa (sheep), baby, ball, banana, bat, bath (bash), bathroom, bead, beep (microwave), belly, Ben, bib, birdie, bite, bless you, boobies, boot, bottle, boy, Brendon, Briahnna (Nanna), brush, bubbles, bus, buttons, ,bye-bye, cake, chai, choo choo (train or truck), clock (cluck cluck with her tongue), coat, cold, come on, cookie (tootie), cry, cute, daddy, dance, dirty, doggie, dolly, done, down, duck, ear, eat, eggs, Elmo, eye, fishie, foot, froggie, gentle, glasses, go,hair, hand, Hannah, happy (means birthday or cake), hat, head, heart, hee haw (donkey), Helen, hello (means phone), hi!, ho ho (santa), home, hoo hoo (owl), hop (grasshopper), hot, house, ice, itty bitty (means spider--ee bee), juice, Julia, kiss, kitty (also means to draw), knee, knitting, lady, lid, light, lion, loud,Lulu, mail, mama, man (means snowman and gingerbread man as well), medecine, mess, mine, mitten (mitt), mommie (means "I want it!"), money, moo-moo (cow), moon, more (mo), mouse, mouth, naughty, needle, neigh (horse), Nemo (emo), night night (nigh nigh--means sleep and blankets), no!, noise, nose, off, oh (cherrios), on, oops!, open, Oscar, out,owie, Pat, pee, people, piano, piece, pizza, plane, plate, play, please (pease), pocket, poopie, potty, pretty, puppy, purse, push, read, robe, rock, run, Shelly, shoe, shoes, sit, snow, spoon, stuck, Suzie, swing (means slide and park), tail, tea, teeth, that, three, tickle tickle, toast, toe, toes, too, towel, toys, trash, turtle, two, tylenol (ta-nol), uh oh, up (and uppie), walk, water, whale, what's that, what's this, wow, yay!, yeah, yes, zantac.

We can preorder the Harry Potter book 7!

I seem to be blessed with good books lately! First I stumble across Juliet Marillier's books--and find that not only has she written one very long series of great books, but she has several books already published and she's working on more! Then I get news that I can pre-order Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--though I have to wait until July 21st to read it. Life is good. Hannah and I read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince the summer she was born. It arrived the day after she was due (but she was already 6 weeks old at that point!).
Also, I found this delightful blog and it contains pages of a beautiful baby dancing around with the most amazing hand-made toys. So last night after work, I hauled my sewing machine out of the basement. We're making toys today!
I've made some progress on Anne's pin--but obviously didn't get it done in a week as I had hoped! Oh well--that's the way it goes. Hannah caught a cold (she's better now), work is super busy (Spin-Off goes to press on Valentine's Day--how romantic!), and it keeps snowing all the time--making my commuting hours longer. It is beautiful, though, the winter landscape.
I better go--Hannah's unloading my framing drawer in my office, bringing me one frame at a time.

I wrote to Juliet Marillier and she wrote back!

I mentioned earlier that I've been reading the books of Juliet Marillier and loving them. All of them. I still have a few left, I've been trying to savor them (the stack on the left contains the books I've read, the stack on the right the ones left to read--plus an extra one for my niece's 12th birthday). Juliet has written tomes in a short amount of time--they are published in Australia first, then the UK, and then the US. Then they are translated into different languages. I've read some fantasy--but most doesn't draw me in, except maybe Mists of Avalon. I think what I like about Juliet's books is that they are based simultaneously on history and fairytales. Some are more obvious fairytales than others, some are more concrete history than others, and then there is always a bit of magic mixed in. What I like about fairytales goes deeper than the happy ending, neatly resolved tale where evil gets its due and good persists. It is the journey of self-discovery, the battle of good/evil within, the magic of believing. Bruno Bettleheim says it so much better than I'll ever be able to.
Juliet ranks right up there with Jane Austen, JK Rowling, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee in my book of authors who keep me coming back for more, spark my imagination, or make me laugh.
So I wrote to Juliet because I found her website and noticed the fan art part. I sent her The Six Swans to post--and she did! And she wrote back--a very personable, friendly note. She mentioned that she used to do counted-cross stitch--I just knew she had to have a textiles connection--with the way she writes about textiles.

Opening reception for Colorado's Small Stitches: Beads and Thread

Friday night was the opening reception for Colorado's Small Stitches at the Tointon Gallery in Greeley, Colorado. I curated the exhibit--so it was really amazing to see it all come together. Here's a photo with almost all the artists who are in the exhibit. From left to right: Rob Watt, Dustin Wedekind, Connie Lehman, Stephen Beal, Lynn Jablonski, Amy Clarke Moore, Kevin Kissell, Jane Mathews, Carol Shinn, Carol Kruger, Sara Rockinger, Jill Powers, and Fran Meneley. Not pictured: Christine Ambrose, Melinda Barta, Ilze Aviks, Tom Lundberg, and Melissa Athey.
The opening was really fun because a group of people who I haven't seen in a long time since I moved to Loveland and then to Denver from Fort Collins, came to the opening. They have kids who were 5 and 7 and now are 15 and 17 and taller than me and looking like beautiful adults--how does that happen? Of course there is never enough time to talk to everyone at an opening. I did meet some friends of Robin Atkins who have known her for over 40 years and then it turns out that I grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same high school as their kids, but just a couple years before--it is a small world. 

Finished Clotho's Thread

Sunday night I finished Clotho's Thread with a wonderful feeling of completion. I started it in September and it took 49.5 hours. I've started Anne's spindle--see the design in the background. I was trying three different sizes and chose the middle one. It is fun to work on a small piece. It should take about 1o hours to complete--or about a week since I usually can only do about an hour of beading a day these days. Hannah is getting better about not needing to grab my beads every time I bring them out--so I've been able to do some beading while she's awake.

Happy New Year!

I hope you're enjoying a good start to your New Year. My Christmas was one of the most peaceful and relaxing I can remember in a long time. Strangely enough, I think it was the massive amounts of snow that we got that helped contribute to that. Here's Hannah checking out the first snow on December 21. I had to give in to the snow and it was nice. I took a week off of work and it was great to have time to get things done and recharge for the New Year. I spent a lot of time playing with Hannah. I got a lot of crafting done watching snow. I spent time with my Grandma Barr who was visiting from Kansas (though her trip was shortened on both ends because of our 2 blizzards). She did leave us with a pile of gingerbread men and pecan tassies. Hannah asks for a "man" and plays and talks with him until she finishes eating him.
I worked on scanning in images of my Grandfather from the boards my Aunt and mom put together for his funeral in March and at the same time worked on Hannah's sweater. I'll think of these images every time I pick up her sweater--they are now intertwined. I spun the top promptly on returning from SOAR where I purchased it from Cameleon Colorworks--it is their autumn color way in Bluefaced Leicester--I love it! I was able to do the spinning in two evenings. It spun up like a dream. I promptly ordered more (which I haven't spun yet--but I'm looking forward to it). I started Hannah's sweater, domino squares on my domino needles and am designing it as I go.

I worked on Clotho's Thread (I'm almost done!). I helped Kelly shovel snow. I read books (I finished the second in Pamela Aidan's series about Fitzwilliam Darcy--the hero from Pride and Prejudice--very good once I got into it--and started Wolfskin by Juliet Mariller).

We got more snow--on December 29th--another 10 inches or so and then on January 4th we got another 10 or so inches! Today it snowed a bit, but only 1 or 2 inches--so it is manageable. I feel like I'm back in Iowa!

SOAR 2006

I'm back from 11 days at SOAR and it is good to be home again with Hannah and Kelly. I had a really good time at SOAR this year--probably the best I've ever had. It was a blast hanging out with the SOAR staff--Anne, Ann, Vicki, and Nancy. We really had fun working hard together. It went really smoothly with only a couple snafus. Participants and mentors were really happy, the resort was fantastic, and the weather was pretty darn good for the beginning of November in the mountains. I was just so glad that it didn't snow that the rain from Wednesday through Friday was okay--and in the end we got sun again. We did get ice on Saturday morning--and I learned of one participant who really bit it--but she was recovering well later--though her computer is a little worse for the fall. Ice and steep inclines--and folks hauling spinning wheels are not a good mix. Fortunately the sun came out and the ice went away.
The hardest part for me was being away from my family. Last year Kelly and Hannah came and that was good--but then it was hard to do both my mommy job and my job job.
This was my tenth SOAR. I love the chance to connect with people with like passions, even though there is never enough time to really talk and being a bit sleep deprived really doesn't help my conversational skills. I found though, that motherhood was really good training for SOAR. I wasn't nearly as tired as I remember being in years past. It would be a really strange thing to go to SOAR as a participant. I've had some classes at other conferences, where I got to just be a student--and it is almost a surreal experience. This year felt like a family reunion in a lot of ways. And meeting new people was also a treat. I got to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee--for me this was akin to meeting J.K. Rowling or Jane Austen. Seriously. Meeting Jane Austen would be slightly more exciting (mostly because, well, you know, she's dead)--but I had to try to supress my star-struckedness and try to be normal. It didn't really work. Stephanie got a kick out of providing me with the word "spindle" when I was trying to describe the bowl with a center dowel that spins beads onto stringShe and I are exactly the same height. She told me that she was disappointed to learn this because she said that she thought I was short. If she looks slightly shorter than me in this photo it is only because we were standing on a slope.
I bought some great fiber at SOAR and have started spinning it up. I spun about a yard on my handspindle at the spin-in--the only chance I had--so I had to make up for all that time of watching people spin and not being able to join in when I got home.
This is 1/2 of the 4 oz of Bluefaced Leicester that I bought from Janel Laidman of Cameleon Colorworks. Boy, was it fun to spin. It is softer than I imagined BFL to be--and the colors are so gorgeous. It bled when I washed my yarn--so I rinsed it until the water ran clear. I started knitting a sweater for Hannah out of domino squares--I learned how at SOAR 2002 when Vivian Hoxbro taught domino knitting. Someone at SOAR had a little swift just like mine--except without the candlewax dripped all over it. I can't remember who it was. But we both found them in fleamarkets--mine was found by a friend. It's a wonderful little swift and works much better than my big one that was damaged in the Fort Collins flood.
The stitch marker I bought from French Hill, Diane Trussell and they were made by Carolyn Baldwin who comes to SOAR every year from the U.K. I have never used stitch markers much--but these are so fun that I want to use them. I think I'm going to have to get more fiber before I can finish the sweater I want to make for Hannah, though.

Daughter of the Forest

I've always loved the Six Swans Fairytale--one of my first beaded pieces was a translation of one of my watercolor paintings into beads (Delicas--the first and probably last time--they are better suited for weaving than my style of bead embroidery). I even have the beginnings of a novel based on the fairytale that I work on in fits and starts, but haven't made much progress on in years. A little bit ago I came across Juliet Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy and her book, Daughter of the Forest. I was a little bit sad that the book I wanted to write had already been written. But now that I'm halfway through the book, I realize that there is no way I could write a book that is this captivating, believable, and steeped in history and folklore. Now I'm just glad that Juliet Marillier wrote it.

Napkin rings

I forgot to take a photo of the finished napkin ring before I gave it to Katie for the Knit Scene photo shoot yesterday. doh! But here it is in progress. And the backside as well. Actually it is easier to see the pattern before I made it a ring. The double knitting helps keep the shape--so it really does function as a napkin ring--no starch needed! All my knitting these days is small--but I can see the potential in this little bit of knitting--wouldn't it make a great pair of socks or a hat? Even a sweater--but it is hard for me to imagine doing double-knitting on size 0 needles for a project that big. I'm still working on my Dad's sweater--started in 1996. Each year between Christmas and his birthday in February I make progress on it--a little bit of progress. Maybe this will be the year that I finish it. 10 years later! The problem is that it is millspun and brown. I thought it would be faster that way--(the millspun that is--I didn't consider how mind-numbing millspun brown would be)--but it has turned out to be much slower. And Dad has lost weight since I started--so we'll see if it is too roomy or not.

Catching up on projects

Here is the spinning belly piece that I mentioned in yesterday's post that I started while I was recuperating. It is the first in a series based on the Three Fates Greek Myth of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured it and Atropos cut it. So it is an image of my hugely pregnant belly (with Hannah) and my hands spinning. When I started this piece it mildly shocked my husband, mother, mother-in-law, and Kelly's aunt. I think they are okay with it now. But it just shows my belly, nothing else. I've also started a small piece of a poppy to fit inside a Fobbie--a cool invention made by my friend Liz Mrofka for wrapping packages.

Lulu is eyeing the yarn on the chairs. I was too lazy to wind the skeins into balls--I'm sure I'll be cursing my laziness later on when I decide to move the project elsewhere. This is the sampling stage of the Knit Scene staff project--the napkin rings. Actually, I think I'll be lucky if I get one done. And if that one is not my sampler, then I'll cooking with fire. Or oil. Or whatever the saying is.

I ordered my yarn for the project while paying close attention to the colors, but forgetting to look at the size of yarn (on the web sizes are easily over looked by folks like me who usually make their own yarn and aren't used to paying attention to sizes of millspun yarn--that's excuse, anyway). So the yarn arrived and it is gossamer weight--beautiful, lofty, and very fine. I proceeded with my plan--to make a double-knitted fabric with a leaf motif. So I'm doing charted double-knitting on size 0 needles. See why I'll be lucky to get more than one done by next week's photo shoot? Here are the front (orange/yellow) and the back (green) with the leaf motif starting to appear.
I'm also very excited about the new desk in my office. It is perfect for both work and play--filled with my photos, stamps, and special papers. On the window sill are the three pieces that I worked on--two reframed for the Hibberd/McGrath gallery in Breckenridge, Colorado and one completed Iris piece for Heidi. I need to put them in their frames and then send them off to their destinations--but for the moment it is nice to have them around.

Surgery=beading time!

Well, who knew? I really didn't expect that I'd be able to get much of anything done while I was recovering from surgery (a myomectomy to remove fibroids--benign tumors in my uterus that had grown a lot during my pregnancy)--but I did! I was able to finish up Heidi's Iris and start a new piece. I'll have to post photos of it later as I haven't shot any of it yet.
I thought I might get a lot of blogging done while I was recovering--but sitting at the computer made me nauseous. It was nice to have a break from my normal routines.
I also got to spend a lot of time with Hannah--now the house seems empty without her cheerful little chirpy voice filling it up. She's started singing. So cute! She's been singing the bottle song ever since the doctor said no more bottles (she's been weaned to cow's milk since July after we couldn't resolve the biting issue) at her 15 month appointment. So milk is delivered in a sippy cup now--she takes one sip and throws it away.
I was hoping to do some spinning, too, while I was recovering--but found it was too physical and too much for my abdominal muscles--I'll try again soon. I have a staff project for Knitscene to work on next--I've been working on ideas--but need to try them out on the needles.

Heidi's Iris is almost done

The big exciting news here is that my sister had her baby! Little William (after our grandfather who died in March) his middle name is Austen after Jane Austen. Julia was born on Jane Austen's birthday, 195 years later. I'm kind of late reporting this to the blog. July 14th was the big day--I got to be there taking photos (from a discrete angle). Hannah was there, too--just not during the actual delivery--she waited with my dad and brother and Eric's brother's family while William was being born. Kelly was at the race track--but he got to meet William on Saturday.

I'm nearly done with Heidi's Iris--two meetings at work yesterday, back to back, each running over by 1/2 an hour and long to begin with helped a lot. I'm almost touching the edges on the three remaining sides. This is always an exciting time in my beadwork--I announce it excitedly to Kelly--who is always appreciative, but who doesn't share the excitement that I feel. And of course appearing to be close to the edges and actually reaching them and covering them with beads means hours more beading--but still--it is exciting. Really.

June in fast forward

I'm really, really behind in posting to the blog. So, I will do my best to get caught up. All in one post. At the end of May I taught at the San Gabriel Bead Company in Arcadia, California (30 miles outside of L.A.). If you're ever in the vicinity (like west of the Rocky Mountains), make a detour to see the shop--it is huge and has every bead and bead related item available. Not only that--but Kelly Thompson who owns and runs the store really understands beaders. She has great class room space! I want to go out again to take classes. I had a good group of students and we had a lot of fun over the three days. Hannah and Kelly came with me and they managed to have a good time, too (despite Hannah getting really sick with the flu on Saturday night--thank goodness for Children's Hospital and their on-call nursing staff--they helped us get through it).

Then there was the Estes Park Wool Market in Estes Park, Colorado--good fun for the whole family. Hannah came up with me thanks (seriously--thank you!) to the help of my parents and Kelly's mom and aunt who watched her while I was working in the booth.
Here's a photo of my friend and colleague, Liz, teaching a kiddo how to spin on a CD spindle. With a hat and poncho like that she's destined to become a great crafter. Reminds me of the outfits I wore as kid--not to mention some of the things I made!

After that there was just enough time to finish Melinda's tiara in time for her June 30th wedding. I got it done about a week ahead of time so she was able to take it to her hairdresser's to practice the updo. Sadly for me her wedding was during Convergence, so I didn't get to go--but I'm sure it was beautiful and I look forward to hearing all about it when she gets back from her honeymoon! The tiara is actually two small combs wrapped with wire with beads. I celebrated my 37th birthday on Tuesday and then on Wednesday I went to Convergence! I was not looking forward to being away from Kelly and Hannah for five days and I had been working on saving up enough milk for Hannah since March--so I was a little stressed out about having enough milk before leaving and getting everything done that needed to get done before I left (wrapping up stuff at work, getting ready for SWA meetings at Convergence, and preparing for my two classes there). That said--I had a great time. It was a slower paced Convergence than years past--and I liked not being crowded everywhere--but it had ramifications for the Market. The exhibits that I saw were very nicely put together and the work was inspirational. I loved running into people I know in between events, at the market, and in coffee shops. The best part was participating in Lindsay Obermeyer's The Red Thread Project. Lindsay organized the making of over 700 hats that were connected together with a thick, knitted red cord and then arranged in a spiral in a park in Grand Rapids. We were invited to partipate (just had to sign a photo release) by putting on hats and dancing with the group. The idea is that people are all connected. The project raises awareness and money for cancer treatments. To see all of my photos from this event, click here. This is me and Vicki--I think that's Sunita's elbow in the photo--Liz is taking the photo.
Now I'm back home (it was so good to come home!) and working on my staff project for Interweave Crochet's Fall issue--I have to finish it by the 13th of July--our photo shoot. I sat out on the back porch in the early morning light yesterday for a bit and worked on it.
Oh! And my sister's baby is due any day now! Speaking of babies--Stephanie (aka Yarn Harlot) had a great post about breastfeeding and a campaign to make baby hats to give to new mothers to encourage a nutritious start to feeding. I'm going to make a hat or two! As a nursing mother, I just want to say "here, here!" (or is it "hear, hear!"?) to Stephanie and also fight off the temptation to call her up and ask for advice on how to deal with Hannah's new desire to use her new teeth on everything, including the precious source of her milk. I called the lactation specialist at the hospital where Hannah was born--so we'll see what they say when they return my call.