Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Just over 10 days ago, despite winter, a group of lacemakers warmed Saturday and Sunday with thoughts of lace. I traveled to the Lost Art Lacemakers weekend in Lafayette NJ to stay with a wonderful lacer and beader (I wish I’d taken some photos of her bead work, it’s truly spectacular) spent a day vending and another day teaching a class. Before I went, I did some thread-dyeing – these are the new colors before being skeined and sorted into individual bags. The class was oodles of fun. Nidia tatted for the first time that day – a fast study who progressed from “How do I wind the shuttle?” to “How do I read the pattern?” in a matter of hours. In fact, before the class was over, she’d progressed onto her second UFO – with promises, of course, to finish the first one. Dorothy and Linda looked like they were getting to be friends and changed seats to better chat while they were tatting; Barbara looked entirely happy. You can’t see two other class members or me, but then again, I was taking the photos. Drove home through what started as snow squalls and ended as an astonishing, though localized, blizzard. The week had a few more flakes in store for us – and a thankfully minor medical emergency (apparently un-diagnosable, but now somewhat better), both of which led to a lot of time spent tatting. Here is the Lodi Star, which I’ll be teaching in April at the Finger Lakes Tatting Group’s Tatting Seminars in a 3 hour class. The one we’ll do has the blue beads which make a strange pattern of their own; it uses my wandering wheel technique of continuous Catherine Wheels. This is the first prototype of the Field of Flowers tatted purse, a beaded bag attached to a cute metal frame. The one we’ll do will also be just a little smaller. The “we” in this instance is those taking the workshop the first weekend in May, when I’ll be teaching in May for the Amherst Museum Lace Guild, near Amherst, which is a really pretty suburb of Buffalo, NY. Just a note here: the first time I went was a year when the Buffalo winter had held a lot of snow… this winter has not (thus far) been quite that snowy, but I’m betting the result will be the same – one of the most brilliantly green spring seasons ever seen. Now back to the Valentine sock marathon, before returning to the tatting factory.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Is there a website to buy your thread?

Karey said...

You can email me at threads@empacc.net and I'll take a photo of current colors, if you like. Threads are $5/for a 75-yard skein and a thingie to wind onto...