A New Year :)

It's such a long time since I last posted. Last year went by in a blur and I feel like I was really only functioning on the surface. It was a rollercoaster year with very happy and very sad times and so I have decided that 2014, although it's already a run off my feet busy year, is going to be  a calmer, quieter, even keeled, happy year.

As I sit here, I can hardly hear myself think. Yesterday while I was out, a water pipe burst in my studio. If you don't know my studio, it is divided into a top section with one step down into the bottom section. My sink is in the bottom section and it is there that the pipe burst. Thank goodness Anna was there so we could start sorting the problem immediately or I would have had a much bigger disaster! Having said that it still took us about 30 - 40 minutes to get the water turned off. I couldn't get through to the plumber on the phone, Chris was out of town... I called our insurance broker for a number for an emergency plumber (knowing that was a long shot since we live so far out of the city)eventually I managed to get 2 very kind men from the factory to go turn the mains off and seal the pipe. By then the whole bottom section was filled with and inch + of water. Anna, bless her, even in the panic had thought to lift everything electrical off the floor and when I got home was scooping water out with a bucket.  The plumbers arrived and fixed the pipe and we moved all the furniture, carpets, spinning wheels, bags of wool etc out onto the lawn. I thought I was going to be soaking up water all night when the phone rang, it was our insurance broker who had organised a company called Dryforce to come and help. At just after 4:00 in the afternoon they left Jo'burg in peak hour traffic to come all the way out to Heidelberg! In no time they had vacuumed up the remaining water - a lot! - and have left 3 machines here that are removing all the remaining moisture and that is why I can't hear myself think!.. but, let's face it, it couldn't have ended better :) I've already put everything except the couches back.

One of the machines removing the moisture

I started this year busy. Usually the summer months are very quiet on the yarn front but I have steadily kept going, even receiving an order on Christmas day! There are 6 exhibitions in the 1st half of this year to make work for, 2 that I'll be curating,  and 6 issues of Stitches to be completed by the end of the year. I will also be teaching at Quilt in Clarens again this year but decided that that will be the only teaching and that I'm going to attend workshops instead.

The first workshop for this year is already done. I spent last weekend in Klerksdorp at a wonderful felting workshop presented by Charity vd Meer. I'll tell more about that in another post. If you ever come across Charity, I encourage you to attend one of her workshops. The next one I'm looking forward to is a Wild Knitting workshop in my studio with Linda Tacke.

One of the exhibitions at IQCA this year is Sculptural Fibre Art. I've been working on my part of a collaborative  piece since December. It's working out beautifully but I have exhausted the supply of stuffing locally so it will have to wait to be completed. Look out for more about this in the weeks and months to come. I'm not telling what it is until after the exhibition opens in the last week of July but here's a little peek ;)

I had decided to make a flamingo for my other piece because I thought it would be different and all of a sudden, in the last few days, I'm seeing them everywhere so I've changed my mind about that one.

The work for the other exhibitions is all still in the planning stage but I do already know what I'm doing for each one (unless I change my mind ;) ) and I've started getting the materials for each one together.

Look out for more in the days. weeks and months to come.. and have a wonderful 2014!