caracolina

I celebrated New Years Eve with my very own tradition – I called my mother in Frankfurt about 5 minutes before their midnight – then she opened the windows just in time for me to hear the people on her street go crazy with firecrackers and rockets while clicking through Frankfurt webcams to find fireworks […]

Read the rest of New Years Weekend

Friday night John and I drove to Tucson because I was going to attend a spinning class and spend some time (and money, ha!) at the Southwest Fiber Festival in Amado. Like last year I was going to stay over the weekend with Elaine (former president of the AZ Federation of Weavers and Spinners Guilds) who also taught my class. John […]

Read the rest of I won! Almost!

One more time I attended the Friday night get-together of the AZ Rhythm Connection at the Crescent Moon Yoga studio in North Scottsdale. This time, Footbear was there to lead the group along with Frank Thompson. He’s an amazing drummer with a completely different method of teaching than Frank. We went through some very challenging […]

Read the rest of Drum Class

I didn’t feel like going home and being alone so I decided to try drumming again. AZ Rhythm Connection meets on Friday Nights in a Yoga studio around the corner from my office in the Scottsdale Airpark. We tried this out in Spring when my mother was here and I enjoyed it a lot. Frank was happy to see […]

Read the rest of Drumming

As expected, I didn’t finish my rug, but I carried off this awesome inkle loom, a gift from Sharie Monsam, our instructor. I had mentioned I bought a book about inkle weaving because I want to make woven bags and thought inkle weaving would be good for the bag straps and Sharie decided to let […]

Read the rest of Weaving class – My New Loom!!!

We drove up to Nutrioso on Friday night so I could attend a 2-day tapestry weaving workshop with Janie Hoffman. Terri and Dave of Waugh Mountain Alpacas hosted the workshop at their ranch. It was a lot of fun and we met Sandy again, too. I came away with a brand new tapestry loom made out of […]

Read the rest of Tapestry Workshop

Needless to say, John and I didn’t make much progress since last week because of our weekend trip and natural dye workshop, but the fun part of Sharie’s weaving class is the community weaving experience and Sharie’s show and tell at the end of class. Every week she brings some sample rugs to explain techniques, […]

Read the rest of Weaving Class – Show and Tell

Our last day was spent finishing up the sample cards and winding the last mini-skeins before heading home in the early afternoon. We left with over thirty different shades of beautiful, plant-dyed yarns. Here is a link to my Flickr set for the whole workshop.

Read the rest of Natural Dye Workshop – Day 3

After beginning our second day here at the Blue River Retreat with another great breakfast and morning walk it was back to the dye pots for me. Today we focused on post-mordanting with copper and tin as well as trying out a variety of exhaust baths and combinations of them, with exciting results. All of […]

Read the rest of Natural Dye Workshop Day 2

Mr. Wise and I drove up to the Blue River Retreat (near Alpine, AZ) yesterday afternoon. We are staying in one of three Windstream travel trailers so that I can attend a three-day natural dye workshop held by Jane (a.k.a. Janie) Hoffman, an expert tapestry weaver and dye master, with five other women. Two of them I […]

Read the rest of Natural Dye Workshop Day 1