I guess this is an end-of-year post

 

I haven't been a frequent blogger this year. In fact, my last several years have been posting-light. I've been writing other things and not taken time to come here to my blog to keep up with what's going on in my life. Maybe 2023 will be different. It can be if I want it to be. Just have to make the time.

Time. That's one of the things that's taking my time! I'm working on a new book in which I'm writing about how some fiber and fabric artists are using time as a motivator. Maybe a diary is being woven, like what I've been doing for the past fifteen years. Others use a journal approach with their making. Some are keeping track of data like temperature ranges for color choices for yarn or fabric in their blankets, scarves, or quilts. It's really quite inspiring to be finding out how time is tied to process for many people. My deadline for turning in the manuscript is early July and the book should be on the 2024 publishing schedule, I think.

Since my last post in August I've had several adventures. First, there was the wonderful class with Dana Wildsmith at John C. Campbell Folk School in August. I'd taken several online classes with Dana before and I was happy to finally meet her. If you have a chance to take one of her workshops, do it! She is an amazing guide who can tap into each person's needs for their writing.

In September I spent a few days at the Lillian E. Smith Center, one of my favorite places to get away and spend creative time. I walked in the woods, picked up small things like acorns and leaves to draw, and worked on the book. 

 

Then on September 30 my heart told me it wanted to take a break. While I was walking that morning I had a pain in my chest unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It wasn't bad but different. I was walking up an incline and breathing hard, the morning was quite cold and I thought it was just that. The pain had gone by the time I got home a few minutes later and I didn't think any more about it. But as I was finishing breakfast the pain came again. This time I decided it might be something to have checked out, I mentioned it to my husband and off we went to the emergency department here in town. After some tests I was whisked by ambulance to the larger hospital about 25 miles away for cardiac observation over the next four days. After assorted tests and scans and enough blood drawn to float a small boat it was determined I'd had an NSTEMI and I was allowed to go home with a handful of new meds. 

I spent one night at home and was back to the hospital, by ambulance this time, because of extreme pain in my abdomen. And back to the larger hospital in another ambulance. It was an obstructed bowel issue and luckily I didn't have to have surgery this time as I did last year. The scar tissue from the past two abdominal surgeries I've had seems to have created quite a network of challenges for my guts. You can imagine that a couple of unplanned hospital stays put a bit of crimp into my time.

In early November I taught another online class, this one for the Redwood Fiber Guild in California. The topic was paper weaving, something I'd done for the Folk School online classes in March. Presenting a hands-on activity online is a challenge--my workspace looked like this at the end of each session! 

I'll be doing a beginning tapestry class online for the Folk School in January and I'm trying out various ways to use my iPhone to film the process of setting up a small frame loom. Maybe by January I'll have it figured out in a way that will make sense for the viewers!

Tapestry Weavers South has an exhibit coming up from January 14-May 3, 2023 at the Folk Art Center in Asheville, NC, and I took my tapestries there earlier in December. I was able to have Tim Barnwell photograph a couple of pieces from the past year while I was there.

Another thing I've devoted time to lately was weaving a postcard to mail for the Tapestry Weavers South exhibit. Weaving and mailing handwoven tapestry postcards was an idea that Archie Brennan came up with many years ago. I've participated in a couple of tapestry postcard mailings that were sponsored by American Tapestry Alliance and each time my cards arrive OK (eventually) and I received postcards in exchange from someone else. I took mine to the post office here in town last week and put it in the mail. Hope it arrives!

My tapestry diary for 2022 is almost complete, only thirteen more days to weave into it. I've finished the image for December, a small cluster of Nandina berries picked from the bush in our yard. I'm not sure what I'll select for images for each month next year. But something will come to mind by January, I hope!