Always in Catch Up Mode...

Hey! Where is the time going? I feel like I'm always in catch up mode - you know what I mean? Just some quick updates. Made it through August with all the shows and such. Sales - way, way down. Partly because I didn't have a lot of time to make inventory, partly because people just aren't buying. Who can blame them? We're in interesting economic times. I'm working on an article for the Women in Glass issue of Flow Magazine. Fun fun - it will have something to do with marbles and something to do with electroforming - couple of hints for you! It seems I'm connecting with friends from my past. Last weekend, I was visited from dear old friends from Seattle and today, I got a wonderful surprise from a friend in Singapore who I met 20 years ago. So nice to hear from him again! So, what's on the horizon? Article writing, maybe some teaching. Beadmaking and spinning when I have time and a trip to Puerto Vallarta in October. More soon! Janelle

August is BUSY!

Obviously, I made it back from the Con - tired and happy, I might add. On Sunday, we wandered the somewhat less crowded vendor floor once again, haunting the book publisher booths. Picked up some authors I haven't read - now I just have to find the time to actually READ! I started a "real" job this week, which means more social interaction, more brain stimulation, (more money =) but decidedly LESS time. Oh well - it happens. Next week is the International Society of Glass Beadmakers big get together (a.k.a. the Gathering) in Oakland, CA. I am the merchandise coordinator so I'll be occupied. It's wonderful to see people once a year though and along with that comes with getting to see some real talent and beautiful beads. When I get back, I'll immediately get ready for "Glass on the Grass" - a nice outdoor show at Gonzaga University in Spokane and then a weekend later is the Arbor Crest Winery show - at which I'm also a vendor. Someday I'll find time to take and post pix of the beads...maybe that day will come this weekend. We'll see!

Comic-Con - Day Three

I made it through a day of really fun and interesting panels!  Any Con attendee will tell you that if you get a decent spot in Ballroom 20 or Hall H and if the programming is good, you'd better just sit back for the long haul and enjoy the entertainment.

This morning started out with a panel on Futurama.  I love seeing Matt Groening, Billy West, Katie Segal and others. They showed some hilarious footage that reminded me why Futurama is my favorite animated show ever!  After the Futurama panel, it naturally rolled into a Simpson's panel.  Interesting but none of the voice talent was there.  Not being a 2-D artist myself, I think I love these types of panels, mainly for catching a glimpse of the people who "do" the voices. 

Next was a really fascinating hour with Dean Koontz.  I can't really say I'm a fan as I've been living under a rock and NOT reading his stuff.  I'll have to pick up a few of the books though and give him more of a try.

I had no interest in the next panel for a new Joss Whedon series coming out on Fox early next year called "Dollhouse" but after seeing the trailer and hearing from the actors, I'm actually excited about watching the pilot.  The premise is that there is an agency that will provide a "doll" or (there was another name for them but I've forgotten) for anyone willing to pay enough.  They have taken actual people, erased their memories and then "load" them with the character of who they are now supposed to be.  If I'm wrong about this assessment, it's what I saw in the trailer.  Looks like it will be good.

Finally, I sat through the Battlestar Galactica panel - which was just awesome!  I love the show so getting to see the cast together onstage was really a treat.  There's a new series coming out too called "Caprica" that makes me want to watch all the early episodes of BSG that I missed.

Here are some pix from the day!

Futurama

Dean Koontz

Dollhouse

Battlestar Galactica

Comic-Con Day Two Part Two

Wow!  Another great day!  I spent much of my time today in "Hall 20" - the HUGE room I talked about earlier.  First, I saw the cast of SG-1 - they're promoting their new straight-to-DVD movie called "Continuum".  Then, I saw a preview of the upcoming video game, "Stargate Worlds" and finally, on that theme, I saw a panel for "Stargate Atlantis".  Fun, fun - really!  Each member of both casts were so funny and outgoing.  It made for an entertaining time. 

Let's see, besides the gaggle of creatively dressed people I saw today, I was smiled at by Dennis Miller (of SNL fame), who was walking around pretty much as a normal conference attendee, I spotted Erin Grey (always at the Con), Eric Estrada, Simon Pegg, Lou Ferigno, Corey Feldman, and several other "less than fresh" stars.  I also sat through the "Bones" panel - lots of funny, pretty people like David Boreanus.

On to the pix!

From Continuum -

From Stargate Atlantis

From the exhibitor hall -

And for Lori - it's a terrible pic but a friend of mine DID get in to see Keanu yesterday so here is a blurry, blurry view of him this year!

Comic-Con Photos!

First official day of Comic-Con.  What an event!  There are 125,000 people here from all over the world.  People watching is just fascinating.  Besides the fact that there are people dressed up like Wonder Woman, fairies and the ever present Storm Troopers - the tattoos, piercings, and clothing choices are certainly unique.

Today, we ate breakfast at Seaport Village and proceeded to spend some time perusing the convention/vendor hall.   It is soooo jam packed that it's hard to move but the booths are wonderful.  Publishers offer free books to get you hooked on an author, toy companes hold raffles aplenty and artists sit and wait to show you their portfolio and to hopefully sell some prints.  Often, you can commission them to draw a superhero or to simply fill a page of your book with their own brand of art. 

We did manage to see one panel - the lines to get into these things are the longest I have ever, ever seen.  We got into the "Twilight" panel.  It is always exciting to see the director, writer and most of the cast members of a movie onstage - even if the best view you get is the Jumbotron-like screens positioned throughout the massive and packed-to-the-gills hall.  I love the vampire-themed "Twilight" books and I think the movie(s) might do them justice.  The youngish-actors were probably scared to death and were more than a little scattered.  Other panels with seasoned actors usually offer a little more insight into their respective movies.  Lori, I do apologize, but we couldn't get in to see Keanu.  The picture from last time will have to keep you contented!

Here are a few pix I snapped today.  More tomorrow!

Star Wars fans must be in heaven!  Those Storm Troopers were at the Lucas Films/Arts booth but I believe they are just normal folk who delight in donning their Trooper outfits every year.  The huge Jabba the Hutt (oh my gosh - where was my brain?  I was tired last night when I originally posted this and totally misidentified the big guy) statue is really impressive.

Life-sized versions of the "Ugli Dolls".  Characters like this patrol the length of the convention floor promoting their booths.

Anime is king here and often, you get to see new dolls, toys and other products before they are officially released.   I like this series of dolls.

At the Con

Arrived in San Diego successfully!  It's just mass humanity - waaaay more people than I am comforable with at times.  Very cool stuff here though.  The typical people with (apparently) no apprehensions wearing costumes and plenty of rabid fans.  Been taking lots of pix.  I'll unload them and post more later.

Playing Hooky!

I only have another week and a half before I start my new "real" job so I'm taking advantage of the time and getting stuff done around the house, making beads and processing fiber with the new drum carder.  The drum carder is so much fun though, that beadmaking is kind of taking a bit of a backseat - not permanently - just this week.  I have made beads - just not nearly as many as I should have.

Here are some of the fibery things I've been doing -

Washed some more llama.  This is a brown fleece with TONS of guard hair.  I'll be picking that out for awhile!  I'm wondering if it's worth it.  Hmmmm....

Then I "rescued" a fleece that I accidentally felted.  This was the first fleece I bought and I thought it was kind of a lost cause but the batts out of the carder are wonderful!

Finally, I hauled out my ball winder and wound the three skeins of my gray handspun that I had dyed teal.

Whew!  Lest you think I was totally ignoring the beads, I WAS prepping stuff for the electroforming bath - here's a sneak peek -

One more day until I leave for Comic-Con - yay!

HOT Wheels!

Our group of ladies met yesterday for the first time in over a month.  We just enjoy getting together and spinning, knitting, crocheting, whatever so much.  No pix this time.  I spun up another bobbin full of llama destined for one of these.

Blanche crocheted on her beautiful chevron blanket, Sunny pulled out at least four projects while we sat there and Lori and Heidi spun some white wool.

I'm going to look at more of the llama today and get ready for my impending trip to Comic-Con.  Many people don't know what a closet geek I am.  I am truly looking forward to San Diego, visiting with my sister and brother in law and seeing the actors, writers, and artists who come to the Con.  More about Comic-Con later.

Maybe I'll get out my camera today and take pix of all the new beads I've been making for the Gathering coming up in a few weeks in Oakland, CA.

Brother Francis Llama Rescue & Retirement

Oh my!  I just spent what seems like a whole day (well, ok - it was several hours) recreating my old posts (copying them from my hard drive) so that I won't have lost everything.  It *is* like starting anew now but at least the older posts from my jetsetting trips to Italy (LOL) are there and you can live vicariously though me or use it as research if you're planning on going.

On to the llama fiber.  When I owned my yarn store (it's been closed a month this week), a woman came in and offered me FREE llama fiber!  Seeing as I'm a fiber junkie, there was no way I was turning that down!  Well, you know what they say about "free" - but in this case, I was really delighted.  You can actually see the fiber providers here - http://www.brotherfrancisrr.org/.  This is a link to a wonderful organization called "Brother Francis Llama Rescue & Retirement".

After a week of finishing up the non-fun work stuff I had to do, I set about opening the many big garbage bags of fiber and found that it's decently clean and really beautiful colors.  Since I'm partial to that caramel color that llamas sometimes are, I grabbed one of the bags and decided to spin a swatch from it.  Beautiful!  But dirty!  Dirty as in very dusty.  So into the sink it went.  I used Dawn dishwashing liquid and soaked in it hot water for about 20 minutes.  Then I gave it several rinses and found that my wrought iron deck table is the perfect drying rack!  (I do want to send a note to whatever llama this came from because he/she did an extraordinary job of staying out of the weeds!)

I feared that a big breeze was going to come up and I was going to have fawn-colored llama fur all over the yard but it stayed calm enough throughout the drying process.  As it dried, I fluffed it up and it grew and grew!  Look at all that fiber!

I have just acquired a very old model Patrick Green carder and decided that its maiden voyage with me was going to result in some nice, soft, fluffy llama batts.  It worked!

Next, I set about spinning this lovely fiber into some moderately bulky singles.  I want to be able to use this fiber to knit and felt a Fiber Trends llama that I can either give back to the rescue or sell for fundraising.  After all, we want these llamas to keep eating and producing this lovely fiber, right?!

I plied these singles from a center pull ball to created a kind of lumpy lookin' but very soft two-ply.

I'll keep ya posted on the progress with the llama knitting.  Our little spinning group - "The Hot Wheels" is getting together today and I know what I'll be spinning!  By the way, if you should want to donate to Brother Francis, follow that link above - I'm sure they'll greatly appreciate it!

Holy Cow! Back after a very long absence...

Hi! I have spent several hours trying to figure out how to log into my old Blogger account. I ended up creating a new account and maybe "faking it out" to think it's the old one. Gotta try to find a way to restore the old posts. Well, what's new? Well, I guess A LOT since I haven't posted in literally (it looks like) a couple of years! So, I'm going to try this again and we'll see what happens. Tomorrow, I promise a post on some lovely Llama fiber that I was gifted. I photo documented the process of spinning my first skein from it and I'll tell the story behind it. To tide you over until then, I've been snapping pix of my pooches. Buddy is the elderly Pug, Annie is the rambunctious French Bulldog and Maisy is a 10-month-old Lab who is visiting until the end of August and who is giving Annie a run for her pointy-eared money!