Guild Day

Today was the Cranberry Country Weaver's Guild picnic. This is a wonderful group of weavers, spinners, and dyers who live anywhere from south of Boston to Cape Cod. We even have one member who comes from Rhode Island. We are a small group as guilds go but have a wonderful time together learning, sharing, and eating (!) together.

The last meeting of the year is always a picnic and sale. Everyone brings a dish to share and we meet at a member's home and share stories, weaving tales, and our lives. There are always lots of goodies (yarns, books, periodicals, used equipment) to buy that can be added to our already over abundant stash! There is no contest here. We are all going to die with more yarn than we can ever use! But we are happy!!!

I am thankful for this group. They keep me grounded in the joy and love of just being a weaver.

They are my source of inspiration and they are all my mentors.

The Day After!

The day after a show is always a catch up day, catch up on the business end and hopefully catch up on sleep!!!

I thrive on meeting customers at shows but it also is a very exhausting time. I was thankful this time to have help from some of my new friends, Linda, David, and Carolyn. I feel very blessed to be here at this place and at this time and to have such good friends willing to help. They are a gift to me.

Saturday was a beautiful day! Perfect weather! I had a lot of interest in my work and a few high end sales. My mailing list is growing and there seems to be great interest in attending a studio open house when I have it. Remember all that painting that needs to be done? Well it still needs to be done! This is the week I will set aside weaving and try to get more painting done. Hopefully the open house will happen at the end of summer or this fall. Stay tuned!

Show Time!

I am getting ready for another show this weekend at The Pinehills in Plymouth, MA. It looks like the weather will be better this time than the last show. It's been cold here in New England but they are predicting weather in the 70's for Saturday. And no rain in sight! Perfect!!!! I hope! The weather in New England can turn quickly! Pray , Pray, Pray!

If you are in the area come visit me at the show. You can find information on my website, http://www.judyconnorjones.com/ and directions on the Pinehills website, http://www.pinehills.com/. Look up info on events and then "Art on the Green".

Painted warp scarf by Judy Connor Jones

My Home Town

I had the great experience today of going on a whale watch. Boats go out from Plymouth Harbor spring, summer, and fall. My son is visiting and we decided to go whale watching before too many tourists hit town. We didn't realize that this would be prime time for school field trips!!!!! We must have had about 100 elementary age students on board. They were pretty good until they became sea sick! One by one they went to the deck below to try to get a smoother ride. That left a clear upper deck for us to view the whales! A blessing in disguise?!

We were fortunate enough to see 6 humpback whales and 2 fintail whales. They truly are majestic! One of God's marvelous creations. And to think they are in our home town waters just off Cape Cod Bay. Wow! It makes me remember that we are caretakers of this earth and we must make sure that these magnificent creatures are protected and survive.

I attempted to take pictures but was only able to capture a small portion of the whales as they came up or down in the water. It's hard to spot, snap, and capture! Anyway here is my humble attempt. See if you can spot the whales. One picture has 2 whales which were swimming in tandem.

Here is my Home Town and America's Home Town.
The portico you see to the left is over Plymouth Rock.

Designing out of Chaos

I've been spending some time looking through pieces of fabric I have woven and stored away for the day when I would be inspired to use them. It has been fun revisiting these pieces of cloth and spending time to design a one a kind piece. My latest project turned out to be a shrug which uses 2 pieces of cloth that were created from 2 different warps that were left over from weaving tops. The colors worked perfectly together. In thinking about my stash of sample items I remembered some silk fabric that I had dyed at an open studio class at The Studios at Cannon Hill where I use to work. The colors were perfect to become the trim on the shrug. What started out as just a fun dying project with no specific purpose became the perfect accent for my one of a kind shrug!




It's always good to have a stash! You never know when that piece you created some time ago will be the perfect complement to what you are working on at this point in time.




I remember the creation story as I think about this. Out of chaos, God created! And it was good!
My studio is still chaotic but I am creating! And it is good!