Ahhh.

A day off, finally.
Kayaking with L and her sister, C.

Are you loving  what it says on L's rear window????
ELIMINATOR
Ha!!!!

 We went to Crane Pond, and it was absolutely lovely.

It's true, life can be tough sometimes.
You see it everywhere.

But then, too, there is beauty all around us.

This is my fave kind of day off.

 Yes, I still wake up with a headache every day.  But I think it's getting better.
And I'm here.
And I'm weaving.
And I'm kayaking.

Life. Is. Good.
And don't forget it.

Sometimes, for no particular reason, I feel a surge of joy.
Just to be here, and to have another day.

 Because every day is precious.

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Digging in the dirt

Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The first hour is the rudder of the day.”

 I like to start mine early.  Alone.  Quiet.  No distractions.  I get my cuppa tea, and start the day on my own terms.
It is good to know what you need.  It is even better to listen to that voice that tells you.

I have loved to roto-till for thirty years.  I have no idea why it makes me so happy.  But it does.
Back in the early 80's, I bought a Troy Bilt 8 HP rototiller.   BIG BOY.   I tilled up an acre or so.  I had 80 tomato plants at one time.  As a matter of fact, when my middle daughter was just a few weeks old, I canned about 100 quarts of tomatoes from that garden.

For 20 years, while I lived in my little house in the country, I rototilled my garden every year.   My garden was so big, that I gave vegetables away at harvest time.
I loved it.  I loved going out there, and tilling up the earth  to prepare it for receiving all my seeds and plants.   It was just heavenly to be out there in the early morning tilling up the weeds between the rows.  It was a meditative experience for me, and a huge part of my life. But when I moved from the country house 9 years ago, I gave up my old tiller, and my garden.

I've missed it terribly.
I tried having a small garden at the studio when I first bought it, but I never had enough time for it, and the woodchucks ate it as fast as I planted it.
This year, after dreaming of a garden all winter while recovering from brain surgery, I decided to go for it.
First off, I called someone to come till the space up.  It wasn't exactly a fulfilling experience.
So then I went to the local Agway, and they had a rototiller I could rent.  But when I called my husband, it wasn't a good day for him.
All my efforts to have a garden this year seemed thwarted.
So I went and bought myself a rototiller.
News bulletin:  You do not have to lose spontaneity as you age.  No, you absolutely do not.  I needed a rototiller.  For my garden.  FOR ME.

I now have a sweet little garden, fenced to protect it from the critters.   I have tilled it up three times so far, and can I just tell you that it is just as joyful today to be out there digging those tines into the rich earth, as it was with my old Troy Bilt all those years ago.

The weaving weekend over, we are back to normal at the studio.
I am working on 50 new rugs for the web site..............
Can I do it???
Sure, but it might take a while.

 It sure will be fun, though.

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Back at it.

Hard to believe, but my last weaving  bootcamp  weekend was last June.  Until now, that is.

I used my "panorama" option to show you what went on this weekend.  Although it would be really hard to convey what was packed into just 48 hours.
Warps were wound, and looms were woven on.

I had three lovely students, one from NH, and two from right here in NY.  
We went over an incredible amount of  material, and they did very well.  The weekend is always intense, and a learning experience for everyone, even me.
I have found that teaching weaving just makes me a better weaver.


The cats seem to love the company, which makes me feel bad that they don't have it more often.
But then maybe they would sleep right through it anyway.

Thank you Chris, Sally, and Kathy, for an awesome weekend.  Here's to the amazing weaving ahead of you!!!
Sydney says:
Come again!!!   I'm not even mad at you for not letting me up on the counter.
Honest.

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Here kitty.

The box that L built for N & N is now inside, and has been converted into a cat tower.

 After much complaining by the "Fab Four", she changed the initials.
She put the letters in order of how the cats arrived at Crazy as a Loom.
Kizzy came first 2007, then Miss Puss, a few months later, then Jinksie, spring 2009, and last but not least, Sydney, in September 2009.

Kizzy is my little manx cat.  Uh, did I say little???
He weighs TWENTY lbs.

But oh, my, is he handsome????
 This photo, as well as the one above, were taken by L with my camera, when I thought she was weaving.  Ahem.
Great shots, though.

And then there's Nexxie, who came a year ago.
Today it was raining, so I took him on the inside porch with me for a while.
He cried LOUDLY the whole time, and wasn't happy until I let him out on the outside porch.
Which he calls home.

Winter will be a different story.  He'll have to cry.  I can't leave him outside all winter alone.
ALTHOUGH, there IS a black cat lurking in the tall grass behind the shed.
I don't think Nexxie likes him though, if the frequent wounds from fighting are any indication.

I have a busy weekend coming up.  I just wanted to stop in and say hello.  Change is on my mind, but I am practicing patience.  Or trying to.
Good things take time.

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Tsuru Sampler

First up, if you're in a Reader, take a moment and click on over to the blog. I've got a new design and I'd love to know what you think! Thanks to Beth Bradford for not only coming up with a design that really fits my style, but doing all the technical work to make it appear!

I'm excited to now have links to all my social media sites. With a click you'll find me on Flickr, Instagram, and Pinterest. Google Reader is disappearing soon, so you'll also find a link to my feed on Bloglovin'. And finally a quick link to email me!

Next up, I'm excited to share my Tsuru Sampler. My very first quilt was a sampler and I always think of them as a good learning quilt. This one was no exception. Having signed up for the Quilt Design tool on Threadbias and needing a project to play around with and learn the program, I started designing several different blocks. Tsuru was sitting on my cutting table at the time and I just started playing - stitching up each block as I drew.

I had fun sewing up some blocks I had never tried before...

And challenged by some of the graphic prints in the line...

This turned out to be one of my favorite blocks...

Perfect block for this sampler ~ Birds in the Air...

And I love how these cross blocks sneak into the border...

I even tried some custom quilting designs that were definitely new to me!

One of the things I love about quilting is that there's always something new to try and something different to learn! Well, that and all the gorgeous fabric :)

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Change.

 To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.  ~Henri Bergson

You all know the year and a half that I have been through, because I have shared it with you, along the way.  Brain decompression, neck fusion 8/28/12 and revision 3/26/13  ......the whole naked, ugly saga.

This is me, just 10 weeks ago, on my way home after Surgery #2.
It still amazes me what abuse a body can put up with.

It is better now, much better.  I am here.  I am alive.  I am, for the most part, well.
  But it is different.  I am different. 
Brain reboot.  Call it what you want.
I'm different.
Somewhere along the way, I met myself face to face.  And I knew that change was coming.

I still love to weave, I still want it to be an integral part of my life.  I want to dream it, create it, love it.
What I don't want is to work endless days and do production weaving.
Funny actually.  
When I started out weaving, I bantered that phrase "production weaving" around in my head.  Asked myself if I wanted to do that.  And then, without exactly knowing how it came about, I found myself doing just that.  Many rugs a day, stacks of rugs in the shop.  
But even that wasn't the end of it.  Because I had access to thousands of pounds of sock waste, I felt that it was my "responsibility" to recycle all of it, in as many ways as I could.
So my brain shifted into overgear, a place where it's quite comfortable, thank you, and came up with more and more and more work.
Soon I had put together the Hip to Be Square looper loom, the Hip to Be Square Rag Rug kit, the Walking on Sunshine braided rug kit, the Chunky rug, the Walking on Sunshine rug, the Sweet Bottom chair pads............are you tired yet??
And then the Prime Mate sock monkey, and the 3 sizes of Socketbooks.  Whew.

All this in EXCESS of my regular weaving of rag rugs, blue jean rugs, placemats, tote bags, mug rugs................custom orders, weaving weekends.
Do you get the picture???
To be honest, the only reason I have been able to keep it going this last two years is because I have in "L", a friend and apprentice  that loves Crazy as a Loom.  She has worked hard, and picked up the huge slack that occurred when I was suddenly NOT myself.

Wake up call: you can become "someone other than yourself" at any moment.  It happens.

The thing is, I will never be that person I was before.  It is a hard truth to swallow, but I can't change it.   I can only learn to adapt to this new reality.
I will never want to weave many rugs a day.   And I don't want to spend my time at the studio doing NON WEAVING chores.
That doesn't work for me.

Like I said.  Change is coming.


All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France

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A day of rest. wow.

Sunday.  One of those days.
Quiet.  And that's ok.

I was touched by Cait's post HERE over at Barefoot Weaver.  She talked about sometimes just not feeling all wonderful about her life, even though she knows she should.
Ain't it the truth though?
Your rational mind tells you that you should be grateful, you should be happy, you should be bouncing back from whatever blows life is dealing you.
But one day you wake up, and you can't go with any of that.
Nothing seems right.  Nothing feels right.  You start this, and move on to that.  You can't get interested in anything, or motivated in any meaningful way.
Everything just seems to suck, and you can't snap out of it.

That's when I say to myself: It's ok.  Tomorrow is another day.  It will be better tomorrow.
And usually, it is.

All winter long, between surgeries, with my life and my well being hanging in the balance, or at least it seemed that way, I thought about all the things I wanted to do with my one "wild and precious life".
Taking time to just be in the moment seemed to be at the center of every scenario I came up with.

I'm practicing.

Siting on the porch today listening to the wind chimes, I was reminded to listen to that inner voice, the one that tells me it's going good, or not so much.

Nexxie kept me company.

 He knows exactly how to live in the moment.

 We can learn so much from our cats and dogs.  All we have to do is be still, and listen.

 Today I'm just keeping still, and listening closely.
It's all good.

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