Today is November, the start of the holiday season. Really. I can’t believe it either, but yesterday was Halloween, so it must be true. Which means that I better get a move on. High on Hooking’s got two big events in the coming weeks:
Guess what? I’m not ready for either. There are several rugs in the house here in various states of (in)completion. Yep, I’ve got days of work ahead of me till November 19 comes and I can breathe. (We won’t even talk about how I’m hosting Thanksgiving here and have to plan for that too.)
I might have been further down the road with the rugs I need to still finish, but real life got in the way. Tom, Tynan, and I were gone for just over two weeks driving back east for the first time since moving to New Mexico back in 2015. We’re tired now, having been on the road all that time, moving between Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts to see family and friends. But it was well worth it. There was lobster, colorful foliage, a trip to the beach, and on and on. Tynan even provided a travelogue for our Instagram page for all but one of the days away. If you didn’t see it, pop on over there.
Must head back to the hooking and sewing now. Hope to see you at one of our events this November. Mention the blog and get 10% off any rug.
This is the time every year that New Mexico is rocking. The Balloon Fiesta is happening, and the state is filled with folks laying eyes on it for the first time. Last week those folks included my college friend Wayne. He arrived late Tuesday, took some down time Wednesday, but was up and at’em come Thursday. Time for me to slip into my tour guide hat.
Thursday we met another New Mexican friend of his in Old Town. We chatted, shopped a little, toured the Rattlesnake Museum, and had lunch of yummy posole. Afterwards we headed over to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on the other side of Interstate 40.
You know, guests give you a chance to look at “your place” with fresh eyes. And that’s a very good thing. I hadn’t been to Old Town in a while, had never eaten in the Hacienda del Rio Cantina. Things do change. Wayne purchased a hat at the same shop, the Old Town Hat Shop & Accessory Boutique, that I bought my own – and my father before that! (Being of Celtic heritage, I am skin cancer just waiting to happen. And yet, I did choose to live in the desert at high altitude, yes.) They agreed to visit the Rattlesnake Museum! I love that place, and Tom still refuses to go back with me. After five years I found myself some willing compadres!
Like I said, after lunch we decided on the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center for our next venue. Should you make your way to ABQ, this is an excellent place to learn all about the 19 Native
American pueblos here in New Mexico, something I never learned growing up back in Connecticut:
The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s museum is the preeminent place to discover the history, culture, and art of the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico. Our permanent collection houses thousands of rare artifacts and works of art, including a world-renowned collection of historic and contemporary Pueblo pottery, as well as baskets, weaving, painting, murals, jewelry, and photographs.
-Indian Pueblo Cultural Center website
Friday was Santa Fe day. Wayne and I had a big breakfast and said “see ya later” to Tom and Tynan who would meet up with us later for a late lunch in Madrid on the Turquoise Trail. Again, I experienced something new. I hadn’t managed to visit the Loretto Chapel with its mysteriously constructed spiral staircase. The story is that when the church was built, they neglected to include a way to get up into the choir loft. The nuns pray and this mysterious stranger comes in and builds the staircase for the nuns then…disappears. Oh, and there are no nails in the thing. You can read more about it here.
After that, we made our way to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum which I visited right after moving to New Mexico. It’s always a joy to go there, and this time it was filled with pretty much only the lady’s work. When we went back in 2015, there was a American modernists exhibit. The museum did not disappoint. Afterwards we puttered some, in and out of shops, ending our Santa Fe visit at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi which is just a beautiful and very accessible church. By that, I mean it’s understated, not at all stuffy.
And then we were on our way to Madrid to meet Tom for lunch at our favorite place. (That’s Madrid, New Mexico, pronounced mad – like when you’re angry – rid.) I almost always get the same thing, the seared ahi tuna steak sandwich. Who knew you could get seafood like that in the middle of nowhere (read no cell phone coverage). Best tuna I’ve had in the Southwest, bar none. Plus there’s rustic ambiance, good wine, and even a menu for the doggies! The place is Tynan-approved. I highly recommend the Hollar if you get a hankering for eats in Madrid. And even if you don’t. It’s that good. See the menu!
And lastly but not leastly…
Next week we’re off on some travel, our first time back to New England since we moved here. You might remember that we were supposed to do this last year, but there were some, er, technical difficulties. No worries this year. I won’t always have access to my laptop, and I doubt I’ll have time to blog. I will, however, be able to post on Instagram and Facebook, so subscribe to my feeds and keep an eye out for the lovely and leafy (it is fall!) and the weird and wacky. I’ll try to make it entertaining. Happy fall, all! No more AC needed in ABQ! Woohoo!
So last week’s post was all about making changes; not necessarily BIG life changes, but the small ones that you hope really take hold. This week is about the progress I’ve made in the last week. Or not made.
The good news:
I did not turn on my laptop two whole days last week.
I managed to make one journal entry. And one is better than zero.
I did NOT freak when I decided not to pass on various blog and Facebook posts.
After such a busy two months, I finally got to clean up some of the dirt and clutter piles that had grown in my house. I have more to go vis à vis “life clutter,” but more on that later.
I’ve realized that looking at Pinterest just before I go to bed results in brain-racing and too many ideas all at once which in turn results in no sleep. Knowledge is power…when I choose to use it.
Today I took a whole day to make a field trip with friends. Cathy, Melinda, and I headed up to Española Valley Fiber Arts Center to drop off some guild donations. After that we investigated a thrift store (where they were selling four – 4 – iced tea spoons for $600!) and had a leisurely lunch in Santa Fe. No one looked at her phone during the meal. (I think.)
The bad news:
I spent more time on my phone and tablet on the days that the laptop was off. At least I can’t play Scrabble on my phone. Thank goodness; the game is a HUGE time-suck.
While I’m glad about being off the laptop and doing other non-electronic activities, certain things haven’t gotten done that need to be done, particularly, updating my Etsy shop. That’s a definite negative especially as I’ve sold a couple of listed items at shows.
Since I can’t seem to come up with another negative, it appears that there’s been progress. We’ll see what happens this week and beyond.
How about you? How do you manage the whole balance thing when it comes to electronics, real life, and what you really want out of that real life?
So, the framer called that the mystery rug was ready to be picked up. Woohoo! And just in time, I might add, to get a couple of photographs of it to submit to Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center. They’re co-sponsoring “Recall-Recapture-Remember,” a fiber show on memory with Tansey Contemporary in Santa Fe. The show will open at Tansey’s gallery May 18th in conjunction with the New Mexico Fiber Crawl weekend. It’ll run four weeks then move to their Denver gallery for a July opening. Here’s hoping I get in.
I’m happy with the framing. It seems that I go in there with something simple (you know, and elegant AND NOT EXPENSIVE) in mind, but the lady with the German accent, she has great ideas. She gets me to trying new things I never would’ve thought on my own. This time we finally narrowed it down to a black frame with blue running through it. Perfect! I also have to hand it to another customer, an older woman, a painter there that same morning as me; her input was very good too. I especially like that she told me the boldly colored frame was best even though she prefers pastels. To “prove” that bit of info, she swore to me that she wore “fairy wings” for three years. Real freaking wings. Like some kind of New Mexican retiree angel. You can’t make that shit up, but, man, she was a hoot.
The piece is called “Memory of Water.” The initial idea for it came to me one morning when I was walking in the Bosquewith Tynan. The ground was parched and cracked as we hadn’t had any precipitation since the last of September’s monsoon rains. I knew I needed to hook something that fell under the theme of “Earth, Wind, and Fiber” for the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Council Garden Show April 7 and 8. Hey, rain, water – or the lack thereof – fit the bill. I decided to kick the environmental thing up a notch and use plastic bags. It’s horrible how our oceans and sea-life are being so messed up given the vast amounts of pollution caused by our prodigious use of plastics. So, I tried to make something beautiful – or at least interesting – out of plastic bags.
If you’ve been following the mystery rug’s hooking, you’ll know that it was easy enough to pull the loops, but not as satisfying as hooking with fibers like wool or t-shirt or bedsheet. Plus, there was the pain-in-the-assedness of the static electricity that reaches a zenith in the winter in an already humidity-free desert. I’m not sure what would’ve happened if I hadn’t had that can of Static Guard. And I’m still finding strips of plastic bags in my living room, never mind the clippings.Not sure I’ll run out and do another plastic rug, but it was a good experiment. And since I finished the rug I’ve purchased not just stainless steel straws and their very important straw cleaners. (I could never really clean my re-usable plastic straws; they were contributing to my recurring sinus infections, I realized.) I’ve also ordered washable produce bags that I can use at Sproutsand other grocery stores. It was really starting to go up my craw sideways that we were using a good 20 bags each week when we shopped. I kept thinking that I’d have to find hooking projects for all those bags. No!!!
Any-so-who, I’m back to working with my usual fibers, specifically t-shirt this week. Feeling a need to do something a little larger than the double mug rugs I recently finished (hooking only), I decided to make a table runner. The sunflowers are a trademark, if you will. I’ve made several similar rugs from them, but smaller. I’m really loving the bigger sunflowers. Hmmm, like the “Big Boucherouite,” I may have to go really BIG with the sunflowers on another rug. We’ll see…
In the meantime, you peeps back east have my sincerest sympathy. All those nor’easters in a row. I’m having flashbacks to 2015 when the snow in New England just wouldn’t stop, and we were trying to get our house ready for sale so we could move out here to New Mexico. Ice dams like we’d never seen. Snow piles alongside the driveway wayyyyy over our heads. The poor crocuses that never really saw light. Yeah, winter in Albuquerque is NOTHING like that. And we like it that way.
How’s your winter been? What’s it done for your rug hooking or any other art you might practice? Let’s all hold our glasses high to toast spring when it (officially) arrives next week.
Special thanks to all those who saved their plastic bags for me, especially you, Mary Ramsey. Without your pinks and turquoises and oranges and purples, the drought would’ve been far worse. 🙂