Thursday, May 31, 2007

Let's Try This Again!

I was almost finished writing my post, when BLOOP! the electricity was gone. I am always never sure if it is just my place or everywhere. So I went to the closet and reset the breaker several times. So it had to be everywhere. So no electricity-what to do? So I picked up my mess in the living room, straightened out the table stuff, swept and washed the floor, dusted, and then what. I couldn't vacuum. I could spin. Nah! I could wash wool. Nah! So I took a tepid shower and washed my hair. Still no electricity.

I saw the most incredible show on PBS last night. It was called Craft in America. It was so wonderful. They showed three shows back to back. My friend called me afterward and said, "I feel like I have eaten a HUGE Thanksgiving meal." We were both enthralled.

Sorry, there were no knitters. But there were weavers and quilters. Some of the older shots at Penland showed spinners too. But it just made me want to CREATE! I want to spin, I want to dye, I want to sew on my quilt top, I want to weave some baskets, I want to finish the woodcarving I never finished, I want to DO. Yet as I reported above, I didn't DO when I could have this morning.

We both discussed the community aspect of the craft world. She is a wonderful oil painter, but in the 70's she designed needlework designs for needlepoint and cross stitch. Not with a company, but independently by word of mouth. I miss the community part of what they discussed last night. I never seem to live anywhere where there is a community that supports fiber art. When I was a weaver, it was really bad. Now there is interest again in knitting, and a few folks want to learn spinning. But I have lost my interest in being the dog-and-pony show or to be the instructor for a few folks who are curious about spinning. They do not want to spin badly, they do not want to prepare their own fiber, they want to dye perfectly like in the magazines. And they find spindles tedious.

I have a friend that just bought a wheel. She used to be a weaver in her hippy days. She became a famous folk singer in between years. Now she and her husband have their not-so-well mothers living with them. And she decided to go back to knitting again. And then that wasn't enough, she bought a wheel. I told her I will be happy to help her in any way and will work with her whenever she needs me. She knows I have been spinning for 30 years. Today she calls me; about 8 or 9 people are coming to her house next week to talk about spinning. But I told her I do not do crowds well. She understood, but she is still in the enchantment part of learning to spin. This almost sounds like I am discouraging the community part of this. But my friend is a serious spinner-to-be, and I do not know the other people. But I have been burned out by folks who are not as serious as she is in learning.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense to anyone. I did talk to a lady at a knitting retreat in March. I was sitting by her talking while she was spinning. We were visiting a friend of hers that is a vendor. It appears this spinning lady used to have sheep. Used to process and sell fiber. But she said, "One day I just decided I could not help one more sheep give birth at o'dark thirty in the morning in a freezing barn. I just want to spin and enjoy my yarn." So she supports her friends who are vendors and buys roving or processed wool. Some times she dyes, and sometimes she buys it dyed. This showed me that someone else got burned out, and now she found her peace by supporting her friends' sheep.

This is a jumbled up ramble of nothing. I think I need to stop and vacuum. I decided to do a load of clothes too. Friday afternoon I have neighbors coming for potluck in our "share our gardens" plan for this year. I normally wouldn't have straightened up, but one of them may bring an elderly couple that live down the road. For them, I hid the bags of raw fleece that were sitting in the kitchen floor, the pile of winter sweaters that need to be washed before putting away, and I picked up the stuff piled on the futon-sofa. We will be outside, but people do come and go in the house. I even washed the kitchen floor! Well, quick before the electricity goes again-here's the post.

No comments: