Twistedspinster

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig

Well, it's high pollen time in the Central Valley. (California, for the non-locals.) Which means that I have been taking sinus medicine, which means I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.

But Visalia was grand! This is the Conference of the Association of Southern California Handweavers, which is held every two years. It alternates with the national Handweavers Guild of America Convergence.

I got to take the indigo class with John Marshal, oh happy days. See his website... I had a sense of deja vu - of how intimidated I am by new techniques, only to realize that yes, this is Doable.

And, of course, my camera battery went dead and I had forgotten to pack the charger. sigh... it's a new-fangled thing that doesn't have AA or AAA batteries, it has this little square thing that needs a special battery charger.

Things I would have taken more pictures of:

• The kitchen. Oh, wow- if you can ever take a dye class where they let you use an industrial kitchen, it's heaven!! Miles of stainless (and it's truly stainless!) steel countertop, stainless steel sinks that are deep and big, as well as the ones at knee level that god-knows-what-they're-for... and floors with marine-grade paint that nothing sticks to.
  
• The process. I have John's booklet "Salvation through Soy" but a picture's worth -- well, you know.
  
• The Fashion Show! Oh, my... I wish I could have gotten video of the family outfits. One family was a cowboy family- Mommy had a jacket, 8yo daughter had a cape with a horsey on the back, Daddy and 5yo son had matching cowboy vests. The other was Mommy, 5yo son and 2yo daughter, dancing to a Beach Boys song. Too cute!
• The Beaded Fringe class. Of course, I picked this up right away and am qualified to teach anyone any day of the week. (cough, cough) But I did ok... I am jealous of Laura S's all-day Beaded Tassels class. Got the book, have the beads. Will do this, sell them and become independently wealthy. (hmmm... better slack off the B12.)

In other news, I have been on an emotional rollercoaster about Kyrgyzstan, of all places. Una passed on an email recruiting a natural dyes teacher for an NGO (non-governmental organization, for those of you deficient in acronym-speech). I rose to the call, we emailed, played phone tag, and I was picked!!

And then the partner-to-be had to tell me that I wasn't going after all. They wanted someone with marketing experience. waaahhhhh!!! but I can understand. This is the kind of thing you really can't look up on the Internet. They want someone who can train artisans to put together a booth at a trade show, to know what trade shows to do, and how to form distribution networks.

Oh, I'm having such a good pout. But I'm tired enough from traveling not to be devastated.

posted by Ruth S. @ 4:21 PM