Studio update and WeFF!

FINALLY!  The studio cleanup is all done. It has only taken me six months or so.  After a few false starts - my studio tends to be the place where I dump everything when company is coming - I bit the bullet and took several vacation days and weekends to buckle down and get the task done.  As a reminder, here are a pair of before pictures from last April:

The van is full of things that are still useful to go to Goodwill next weekend.  And sitting on my curb as we speak are a recycling bin packed to the gills and a garbage can full of non-recyclables. And here, courtesy of the Photosynth iPhone app, are some panoramic views of the cleaned up studio:



This is the library. Loads of books (still need to do some paring down), and non-fiber craft supplies and tools. Plus the treadmill. I lost interest in using it a couple of years ago when my dog, Bungee, died, and it became a dandy junk storage device. Now I have no more excuses for not using it and in fact I just renewed my iFit Live membership so I can create and download new walking trails. Plus I can gaze at all the skeins yarn stored in tubs around the room and daydream about all the wonderful things I'm going to make with them.

The library has also doubled as a guest room in the distant past - although no one in his right mind would have stayed there in the last couple of years. Now it's cozy and has a surprisingly comfortable daybed and I'm tempted to sleep out there myself. Almost.



This is my workroom as seen from the doorway.



And this is a 360 degree view of the workroom. The stitching of the photos got a little wierd around the big loom and the file cabinets but it does give you a pretty good idea of what the whole space is like.  I still have some decisions to make about some of the stuff stored under the table and would really like to get rid of the file cabinets and all their contents.  Somewhere I need to make room for the knitting machines and that corner would probably make a good storage place for machines and all the related tools.

Yesterday, my friend Holly and I went to WeFF,  the Southern California Handweavers' Guild Weaving and Fiber Festival.  It's an annual event where they exhibit their handwoven work, sell surplus library and donated items, have a HUGE raffle, and a fashion show. Plus three large rooms filled with vendors of all kinds of lovely fiber-related stuff.  I actually won something in the raffle:

It's a set of beautiful Schacht stick shuttles in four different sizes.  I couldn't seem to get truly representative photos - each is made of layers of at least three different dyed wood colors.  Can't find them anywhere on the web to show you just how pretty they really are.

I always look forward to this festival - it's large enough to have a good selection of vendors, but small enough to still seem intimate.  As shy as I am, I seemed to spend the whole time talking with people - loads of friends and just as many strangers.  There's just something about fiber arts and the people who practice them that makes for easy friendships.

You might have noticed a tree loaded with cones of yarn in one of my studio photos above.  I've been puzzling about how to store the growing collection of yarn on cones in my stash.  Then a few weeks ago, the teacher in my Wednesday night class, Marie, was talking about wanting a tree for storing cones in her new studio.  Eureka!  So I started searching the web for trees and found Doc and Rosalie Holub of Doc's Wood Stuff.

Doc builds yarn trees and several other items, and Rosalie does the marketing.  After emailing back and forth a bit, they told me they would be at yesterday's show, so I made their booth my second stop (always have to visit the guild's book/magazine corner to look for bargains before they're gone).  They turned out to be just as nice in person as they were in their emails.  And the trees look even better in person than they do in photos.  Made of oak, they are solid without being too heavy to handle.  I was worried about dowels breaking but they are quite sturdy and made it home in my car and through several gates and doorways without incident.  I think my tree is going to be around long after I'm gone.

These trees were popular items -- they were selling them as fast as Doc could bring them from his home.  Takes one trip in his SUV to carry just one tree.Lucky for me the seats in my Prius fold down and the tree is made in two pieces for transporting easily.  Doc made one last trip home to pick up my tree, and soon after Holly and I were on our way home from WeFF.   Here's my new tree all set up and waiting to be loaded with cones. 

Looks like it is going through the ceiling.  Silly me...  I made sure I had enough floor space for a fully loaded tree, but I didn't think to measure the ceiling height.  The ceiling in this room is very low and we had just enough room to fit the tree in.  Seems like yesterday was my lucky day.