Bermuda Fiber Festival Registration Begins!

Good morning!

One of my major projects of the year is well under way as the registration for the 2nd annual Bermuda Fiber Festival (or Fibre if you are Bermudian or Brit :-) opens with the unveiling of our informational website! Wow, I never would have guessed a few years ago that I would be helping to bringing fiber education to Bermuda! But then again, there are many things that life has brought me that I never would have guessed about.... I am grateful as well as blessed...

After spending the last month in intensive work, the program is looking great! We have put together a nice mix of various felting and weaving classes being taught by three US teachers. In addition, it has been one of my goals for this event to bring out the local Fiber Artists so that they too would have a venue for sharing their passion for various Fiber Arts and we are succeeding at doing so with the addition of classes being taught by at least two locals and we continue to work at bringing two more into the harbor.

This years program will offer nearly 50 workshops for ages 2 through adult and includes special programs for school groups. Last year's event brought us more than 200 children and nearly 100 adults for fiber education workshops. We hope to bust that number this year with a terrific program and registration beginning well in advance of last year. I will keep you posted on it's progress....

Please take a moment to visit the Bermuda Fiber link and see what my excitement is all about. It is especially gratifying to me that we are unveiling this now, as I prepare to leave for the US for the Fiber Center event at Fryeburg Fair in Fryeburg Maine which begins on Sunday September 28th. This event was the inspiration that helped to create what the Bermuda Fiber Festival has become. This eight day event brings Maine the largest Fiber Exhibition Hall in New England devoted entirely to Fiber and Fiber Education. Each day from 9am - 9pm fair goers are able to experience a myriad of fiber, fiber art, and educational fiber demonstrations. A list of Fiber Center Events is posted on my website.

I will be away from the computer for about three weeks while I prepare for this event and then reconcile it afterwards. I will have some of my Hairlock Paintings on display and my newest fiber earring creation in addition to the usual Alpaca sweaters, and accessories that I always have there.

I hope that some of you will drop by the Fiber Center to say hello......

Commission Accomplished!

First I need to appologize for my lack of postings over the last weeks! I appreciate those of you who continue to visit in spote of my short commings.... I will explain, but first things first...


I have completed the "Bingo" commission and have pleased the client as well as myself with the finished painting. The photo at left was the original that I used to create my rendering of him in preperation for the work. This black & white photo is about 2" x 2" in real life but was of good clarity so that detail showed up quite nicely on it.





This next photo is the drawing I did to use as a pattern or template of Bingo which helps me to plan the placement of fiber which ultimately gives the depth, texture and dimension that I am after in the final piece.







Please accept my appology in advance for the quality of the finished Bingo photo! If you read on you will learn why this is.

Next came the actual painting! I was challenged by this piece because the final size of this canvas is only 11" x 10". To give you prespective, the hair on his chin is only 1/4" long. How was I to manage fibers so short and keep them in line so that they give the appearance of life like hairs coming away from his lower lip, combed perfectly straight? It worked in the end and I am always amazed at how I seem to find a way to move through the challenges that present themselves while doing this work.


I really love this medium.... It offers so much flexibility, so many options, so much depth and a richness that I never tire of looking at it or creating with it. I sometimes feel the need to pinch myself to prove that it is real; that I created this artform, and that it has become a part of my life!


I'm glad to be able to finally share this with you but I am not happy about the quality of the final photo of Bingo. One of the reasons for not adding a post in the last weeks is that I have been having problems with my computer. In my constant need to improve things, I decided that I would like to download the upgrade to my Olympus camera program so that I could take advantage of creating slide shows. Easy to do right? Have you ever heard the phrase "if it ain't broke?" Well let me tell you that if I could turn the clock back I would never have attempted it! Something happened in the download process that has rendered my Quick Time program unreadable to the Olympus program even when I have removed the upgrade and re-installed the original program. Not only do I not have access to the hundreds of photos on my computer with a program that I know and love, I have lost a program that gave me incredibly professional looking photos that I could use on my site. I am currently using Picasa in it's place but it is a poor replacement. I find the cropped photos are grainy and the editing software gives me no where near the qaulity that I had. I am beside myself with grief over this loss. It is only because I have finally accepted that Picasa, for now, is my only choice and that I felt I had neglected this blog for long enough that I am now posting.

I promise to write more frequently now as long as you promise to not judge my photos too harshly until I can find resolution for this photo problem :-)

Until then......

The month of August took me to New England earlier than planned to celebrate a death in the family. Since I was due to travel a week later, it made no sense to return to Bermuda, only to find myself back on a plane in a weeks time.

I used the extra time wisely spending some quality time with the new babies in my family and had a blast! I got peed on, puked on, and even pooped on, and loved every minute of these precious moments with the boys; Henry, Jackson and Owen. I will return to Maine in a week for the big event of my year, Fryeburg Fair, and once it has passed will have a few days to reaquaint myself with them again. I will have to soak up as much of them as I can this trip since my travles will not take me near them again til I'm not sure when next year! They will have grown so much by then!