More than enough time…

…to let you know what has been going on in my life.  Although with the current COVID-19 situation, it is not very exciting right now!

I officially stopped teaching. Basically that means I am not going out of my way to set up workshops or classes. Still love to pass on my passion for fibers, so if anyone is interested, just contact me and we can set something up.

The grandkid population has increased to 6 with each son/wife creating two. Those little ones are a blast!  And they are not so little anymore: two almost 9, one almost 8, two 4 yo and one going on 3. Soooooo missing their company this year…

The biggest challenge right now is upping my sales game virtually.  For the past 10 years or so I have been a part of a 12-woman group, Studio Collection, putting on an annual sales event the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year we had plans in place to change our venue which was promising and a bit scary as the event had been held at the same venue for more than 20 years. Now, bless that little virus heart, we are thinking we might have to do it all virtually!

The majority of the artists are pretty capable with their online presence. I am a bit of a dinosaur. Trying hard to put online stuff in place that will be easy and productive without having a degree in website building. Seems like each potential web sales possibility has just enough that I don’t know… and they all seem to make it hard to put it all together.  But I am trying. It will be an adventure, for sure!

You all stay safe!

Took advantage …

… of the lovely day of weather that we had last week and pulped my banana chunks. They were finally thawed out and wonderfully retted. Probably against all advice, if I had gotten any, I skipped the cooking stage and went directly to beating.

Banana pieces, being so nicely ‘plumped up’ and curved, don’t like to go through flat and close beaters. So I persuaded them a bit by tearing them into smaller chunks. That helped a bit. A very little bit. More persuasion was needed.

Out came the bats! No, not the kind we found on the basement step, but the hard round kind in the form of thick dowels. After some serious pounding, during which those juicy banana pieces squirted all over the garage floor, the flattened banana fibers slipped right into the beater between the ‘teeth’ and in no time I had pulp. Image

The pulp still needs some beating time to finish it properly before pulling any sheets, but it is now in a manageable size freezing again (this time in the basement chest freezer) until I have time to work with it. And it has been saved from being dumped in the woods by my love had it remained in the kiddie pool when I head off to Australia.

All is good. Especially since I know he won’t be inclined to pull things out of the chest freezer for dinner.