Reality Check

sample #5 loom state

There are delusions and optimism - and then there is reality.

As I finished cutting the loom state samples for Big Project #5 today I mulled over everything that needs to be done once I get home.  The realization dawned that there isn't a hope in you-know-where of getting everything done by the HWSDA conference in mid-May.  So the schedule has been revised back to having this ready by the time of Convergence. 

I'd toyed with the idea of attending Convergence this year but have decided that I really need to be staying home.  With the results of the home inspection of mom's house, mom's back-to-back surgeries (she is still planning on having her knee done two months or so after her heart valve replacement), the amount of stress that we have been under, the expense of travelling to southern California this summer seems like one stress too many.

If it were only the weaving that needed to be done I could probably do the last 5 samples (still hoping to get one more woven before I leave) but that is just the beginning.  It takes hours to tape and cut apart the loom state samples, then wet finish and cut apart the finished samples, tie the bundles of yarn samples, staple everything to the card stock and once all that is done the text still has to be written and everything assembled.  The weaving is the smallest part of putting together this sort of publication.

Revising and developing new teaching topics has been put on hold while we deal with mom's situation and I go away.  I am open to suggestions for topics (such as the guild program for Seattle in September which Holly and I worked out recently).

I have also not increased my teaching fee as I'd planned on doing this year so any topics booked now will be at my current fee of $300/day plus travel and accomodation (in a non-smoking home).   The John C. Campbell Folk School has invited me back to NC next year in January - this would be a good time for guilds in the east to book now and share travel costs.  :)