Up at dawn

It's been a while since I posted here. Consuelo and I have been very busy over the past few weeks, knitting and working on the campground wifi respectively.

Mahlon's Photography. I'm moving more towards creating a way to sell some of my photographs. The one at the top is a sample of what's going on over at Photoshelter, where I'm setting up my outlet. I haven't done much to drive traffic towards that site yet, so I haven't sold anything there. If you have a minute, stop over there and offer me a comment on a photo or two.

I did have a few prints for sale at the campground craft fair, and sold about 1/2 of them. Not enough to buy a new lens, never mind a camera, but it was a rewarding experience. I got a lot of nice comments on my work.

Next up is a juried show at the Art Center here on Jekyll Island. If I can get my act together to get the prints and get them mounted, I'll put in a few entries.

Consuelo's Slippers. Consuelo has been knitting and felting slippers at a breakneck pace. She had about a dozen made up for the craft fair, and sold a dozen there, but half of those need to be knitted yet as she didn't have all the right sizes and colors. So, she just keeps knitting away, even while she's traveling to Naples this weekend.

She is also going to enter slippers in the craft show at the Art Center, which means even more pairs to make and have inventory on hand. Busy, busy, busy.

Campground wifi. I started pressing the campground to get their wifi working back in December when we first arrived here. It was the main complaint from the campers, since many of us have come to depend on the internet for banking and other important things. I suspected that reconfiguring the settings would be a cure for most of the problems. Turns out I was right.

Once I got the powers to be to understand that I might be able to help, I rewrote the configuration file for the Ciscco router which connects to the internet. That improved throughput considerably for the users who worked in the community room. Then I went to work on the access points throughout the campground, and have reconfigured all of them, as well. It is by no means perfect, but it's a whole world better than what was there to begin with. Next they will be raising the antennas for better line of sight, and I expect a bit more reconfiguration. But the campground manager is pleased, and we have a lot more happy campers.

Little Dream, Big Reward

El Centro, CA, In The Rearview Mirror (by Consuelo)

A month, three days, twenty hours and twelve minutes… Rio Bend RV Resort, a nice stay by the golf course, surrounded by old and new friends.

Slippers drying for the craft fair

Early in our stay I checked out the planned activities looking for something crafty to do. I’ll take the watercolor class, I thought, so off I went the first Monday of our stay. $7 for all the mess I could make, what a deal. I brought to the class one of my now-famous knitted and felted slippers to ask the activities director how I should price them for the up coming craft fair. I’ve made over 30 pair but all have been gifts so far.

So, I whipped the slippers out before the class started and I was accosted by two enthusiastic Canadian women. They giggled as they tried them on and were curious how they were made. Felted? They had no clue what that meant but in the spirit of “we’ll try anything once”, they asked if I would teach them how to make them. They were sure there were a couple more women at their campground across the road that would be interested in learning as well. We made a date to meet at their place the following day.

Instructing the Canadians

At the meeting, four others joined our developing plan for a class. They, too, tried on the slipper I had brought and giggled with interest and curiosity. We chose a day, 10 days hence, to give time for large orders of yarn to be placed and delivered. I busied myself ordering yarn from a manufacturer I love and recommend for this project, we bought seconds which are low cost and flawed in small ways not impacting a felting project. Everyone was excited.

The class day came and we gathered at the home of one of the students… I made a feeble attempt to teach. These were all lively, fast thinking, smart women and I could barely get a word in edgewise!! Silly me, I had made IBM-ish charts to explain this and that to them but, no luck, they just wanted to get on with it and KNIT! And knit we did. There were “challenges” to techniques, some thinking they knew a better way… all that knitting had to be ripped and the teacher’s instructions were then, finally, heeded. Lots of laughs and a few struggles.

The class, pre-felting

When finished, these slippers are humongous. At least fifty percent bigger than the final product so… there were doubters that these large sloppy looking things would ever fit. A week later, having given everyone enough time to finish the pair, we gathered at the campground’s laundromat to felt them. Several hot washes did the trick and there were oos and aaahs of delight as the projects got smaller and smaller and finally measure the intended size. They were all going to show them off at the campfire that night. There were hugs and thank-yous and wishes for future projects. I was happy.

Finished products

Here is the part of the story I didn’t tell most of them: feeling qualified after thirty-plus pairs, I had been thinking of teaching this project. Had not yet figured out where and how, it was just an idea rattling in my head and then our paths crossed at the watercolor class and it all became clear. The moral of the story is a well-known one: dream your dreams and a way to attain them will show itself at the right time and place. In my fortunate case, it was also the right, fun, interesting people that just appeared out of nowhere to bring this little bit of fullfillment into my life. Now I think I’ll offer to teach at campground as we travel the counry and, come summer, maybe even in Maine.

PS I sold seven pair at $30 each at the carft fair. What a hoot.