After two nearly two and a half years of watching concerts and conferences, festivals and gatherings being cancelled or postponed, this past month has been a whirlwind of activity. I’m grateful for all the opportunities we have had to stay in touch and have virtual experiences through our modern technology, but there is nothing like the real thing. In the past few weeks my cup has been overflowing as I’ve gotten to be with my fiber arts tribe again and again.

I’ve been enjoying sharing my friend Sidney’s wonderful collection of objects with you over the past few months. Nearly all of what I’ve shown you has been in the main open room of her small apartment. But tucked in the back of the apartment is an extra room that she affectionately calls The Green Room. This is where she stores all of her supplies for making her beautiful journals and collages, and of course, the predominant color scheme in the room is green.

Last month we looked into my friend Sidney’s cabinets at the entry to her apartment - the ones in the more neutral tones of earth colors, subtle purple shades, whites and blacks. Now I’d like to continue the tour over to the wall that has a series of cabinets in turquoise blues and deep rich reds.

A couple months ago I introduced you to my friend Sidney, who lives in Mesilla NM in a small apartment filled with the wonders of the world. We looked at one little corner of her apartment, where she keeps sands in a vast variety of colors from all over the world in tiny vials.

But surrounding the perimeter of her living room are a number of plain white cabinets that are unprepossessing from the outside, yet filled with small treasures that she has artistically arranged both by color and by unifying themes.

The first workshop of mine that had to be cancelled due to covid was to have been held on March 24-27 of 2020. The first workshop that I was able to teach live again was held on March 24-27 of 2022 in Raleigh/Durham NC. I am taking this as a hopeful sign that these are to be the bookends of this seemingly endless time and we might be beginning to emerge back out into the world again.

In February of 2001 I went on a trip to Guatemala to spend ten days traveling with Deborah Chandler and four other women. I had met Deb at a WARP retreat at Ghost Ranch the previous year and learned that she was now living in Guatemala and was going to start taking small groups around the country to experience the weaving and and visit various sites.

In my last post I shared my experiences studying silk weaving on jacquard looms at the Lisio Foundation in Florence, Italy. While we worked very diligently during our three-week course, we still managed to find plenty of time to explore Florence, go to museums, and of course, eat plenty of pasta and gelato.

During my three years studying under Barbara Setsu Pickett in the early 1990’s I heard many stories of her experiences living and traveling in Italy while studying silk velvet weaving at the Lisio Foundation in Florence. It was a dream of mine to join her on one of the biannual trips that she took students on through the University of Oregon.

A few weeks ago I posted a story about an experience in which I attempted to weave a double-width throw using mohair bouclé as my warp. Challenging and time-consuming though it was, it did end up with a happy ending and a lovely throw. Apparently this struck a chord with some of you because I received a number of email responses from weavers sharing their own “learning experience” stories with me. It occurred to me…