Thoughts for a snowy day

"Weaving is a handcraft which, with a comparatively small expenditure of money, can give almost limitless outlet to a person's creative urges, and, at the same time, the creation is thoroughly practical since every throw of the shuttle helps produce something both beautiful and useful. It has the advantage over many crafts of appealing to almost countless types of personality and interest. The current enthusiasm for the craft almost proves the lightly made statement that handweaving is a highly contagious disease for which there is no known cure." ~ Harriet C. Douglas, Handweaver's Instruction Manual, 1949

Amen, Harriet!

While many months have elapsed since I last posted, I have been keeping busy. We have had an unusual winter, with snow coming earlier, after months of drought late last summer. The birds have been prolific and here is one of my favorite, the Pileated Woodpecker, although he's usually hard to catch with the camera.
If you have never seen one, these guys are BIG!

I have been doing some weaving, too. My plan was to retire my plastic bag rugs in 2010 and the last of the old bags were woven last week. After working with the bags for 12 years, I've noticed a difference in how they "hold up" and while I'm glad that steps are being taken to help the bags biodegrade more quickly, I don't want them to do that in a rug. If you want to know more about why I even bothered to weave plastic bags, here's the scoop.
The last batch of rugs were very colorful, here are two of them:

These will be kept as examples of plastic bag rugs along with a wallhanging which has not been completed yet (but I will post pictures when it is).
On another note, my work and mission has been turning up in numerous blogs recently ... here is an example. This is thanks to the blogging of Delia Montgomery of ChicEco so thanks, Delia!

It would be very easy for me to keep going today, posting pictures, bringing this blog up to date, but my office calls ... come do your filing! Come clean off the desk! Come sew (yes, my sewing machine is in the office)! So, hopefully it won't be another six months before I return ...

Chris

so far behind ...

When you get this far behind in posting to your blog, what can you do to catch up? Just ignore the three-plus months since the last post where I was waiting for spring? It's now mid-summer (although the weather for the last week has been divinely spring-like) and I don't know where to start.

Much of the intervening time was consumed with preparations for the Brown County Studio and Garden Tour which took place the last weekend of June. Gardens had to be designed, flowers planted, weeded, watered (not much) and deer-proofed. There have been years where the local deer population wandered in the week before the tour and ate most of the daylily buds, the roses and the hostas. This year, they were considerate and only ate beans off the fence of the vegetable garden ... I was very grateful. I suspect that they remembered the taste/smell of the home-made concoction I sprayed on plants last year.

In addition to the gardens, I was busy weaving rugs and clothing for the tour and for stores I sell to ... business is still solid, if not brisk.

During the tour, we had more than 350 visitors over the three days.

Stuck on the hill

It seems to be done snowing for now. We received 6 inches yesterday, then about a half inch of sleet and freezing rain, then another 6 inches on top of that. The path is cleared to the studio and the sun is trying to shine. Yesterday's list in completed and today will be a loom warping event.
I love living in the country. It's a good thing I don't get cabin fever very often.
There is some weaving getting done this winter. Although most of the rug weaving is done on the studio porch and is dependent upon temperatures above 40 degrees, we've had a few nice days. Here's a picture of a plastic bag rug I finished recently and I love the way it turned out.If anyone wants to try working with the bags, there are instructions on my website.
Off to the warping!