Last Blog ... At Least for Awhile ...

This will be my last blog of 345 in almost eight years of blogging.  Blogs have helped keep me connected with readers, organized with my projects and other work, and clear in how I want to present myself to the world.

However, it's time for a change.  I have a new and improved website with a Gallery for posting my latest blankets and other items, and I'll be setting up a "Where to Find" tab at the top for posting my upcoming whereabouts at markets and craft fairs.  This should be easier and more organized for anyone trying to find what's available or where I'll be.

I was really honoured to be awarded as one of the Top 100 Weaving Blogs in 2017.  Feel free to check my blogs in future if you need any references or ideas.

Thank you, readers!  And happy weaving to you weavers!

End of Year Thoughts and Feelings

At this busy time of year, we in the northern hemisphere have been eagerly awaiting the winter solstice today while running around getting ready for Christmas.  For artisans who sell their work, this time of year has the added bonus of craft fairs and restocking their gallery outlets. This makes it all very engaging and fun!

And for those artisans, the last two or so months of the year constitute a good portion of annual sales.  It's true for me and I know for many others.  Once Christmas arrives, we are pretty well sold out in our studios and at our outlets.

My main aim is to make more, not to get rich or try to satisfy detailed custom orders.  I just want to have fun at my looms and see what I can create.  I call it exploration without travel.  Then if people like my work and want to buy it (or receive it as a gift from me or someone else) that really tops it off for me.  Again this year I received so many lovely, heart-warming and inspiring comments about my weaving - people say it's beautiful, it lasts for ages and it's special to the owner, whether it's a blanket, towel or scarf.  Those comments mean the world to me.

But knowing I have 2020 ahead of me to make more is a lovely feeling.  I have a special order of pool towels with samples to first be made and shipped to California.  At the medieval market here in November, a customer gave me a great idea for a new, really innovative product that I am dying to make and see tested and refined.  And I have barely any cotton blankets left and they're on my list, too.

So while I may feel a little overwhelmed at this time of year, I am pumped for 2020.  It's a wonderful feeling inside me and I can't wait.

I Just Love It When ...

A recent studio visit by a Cariboo Handwoven blanket owner had a special moment for me. Well, the whole visit was special for me because she and a friend made a day trip to visit my studio, watch how a loom works (they were amazed) and see what I had available for sale. I was really touched that they would take a day to visit me, and I gave them some ideas for things in town to see and do before they headed home.

The blanket owner wanted a second blanket, a cotton one, and requested something in greys with a little yellow. I think that's how she put it. I had something new that might fit her idea. As soon as I pulled it down from the shelf, she knew it was for her. I just happened to have those colours and it was a quick and easy decision for her.

I just love it when someone instantly 'knows' that one of my works is for them.

Here's the blanket she bought:

It's a fringed cotton blanket, just finished a month ago. It's gone to a good home!

Hello 2019

My early winter hiatus from weaving and blogging has happily come to a close. I used up most of my 2/8 cotton supply for towels towards the end of December then only had sufficient wool left for blankets. But I didn't feel like weaving blankets, especially in earthy tones of greys, browns and white - I've been seeing that enough looking out the window. I want bright colours and fun!

My supplier was closed for Christmas and then must have had a big backlog, based on their slower-than-usual response time to my order. Then the shipping took ... forEVER ... I've already made a note for November 2019 to ensure I have enough bright yarns to see me through the holidays and well into 2020 if needed again.

Now we're all into a new year and the days are growing longer. I'm warping up the new cottons for bath towels, something I haven't woven for awhile. I have two orders and we need some in the house, so that's all very inspiring.

Then I will be well into another wonderful year of projects, craft fairs, our farmers market, and studio visitors after eventually seeing the end of January.

Thanks to blog readers for sticking with me through thick and thin. I like checking page views and seeing where you are all over the world!

Happy 2019 to all.

Another Guest at the Blanket Spa

At the local farmers market a few weeks ago, a musical couple I know visited my booth and talked about their favourite cotton blanket. 'He' bought it for 'her' at the Medieval Market several years ago. They'd taken it on their recent summer vacation through western Canada and north into Yukon. It had endured some pulls in a few threads and they weren't sure what to do. I said "Bring it to me!" Then I could fix it and return it to its original condition.

I've talked earlier about what I call my blanket spa. Any well-loved and well-used blanket or anything from Cariboo Handwoven that needs a little TLC I love to restore and return to happy owners for further use.

Once I had it at home, I examined it carefully and used a darning needle to gently bring pulled threads flat.  This is a delicate procedure that requires pulling the loose thread from both directions and flattening the thread back into the cloth on either sides of the pull. One very large pull had not wrinkled the fabric on either side and was not going to easily fit back into the cloth, so I cut the thread, spliced the ends together and trimmed the emerging ends.

The blanket had a good wash and then went out on the line to dry in lovely Cariboo sunshine on an early fall day.

Then it went for pressing, with any other pulls fixed that I'd missed, and I laid it flat on the floor to rest.

It is rather fascinating to see my early work. Some of it's not bad! What really heartens me is to know that owners are totally happy with their blanket and it's become almost part of the family. I knew I had to return it quickly because it would be missed.

Another guest leaves the blanket spa - restored, revitalized and ready for more years of service.

"It's Exactly What I Want"

One of the spinners at our spin-in two months ago mentioned to me that she really wanted one of my Georgian Bay blankets. She visited my studio in early June and we went over the colours for the rows of water, rock, trees and sky. I wanted to ensure there were no shades that she really didn't want, and that her blanket reflected her own memories of Georgian Bay.

She added some sandy light brown for beach and wanted a touch of light green for deciduous trees and reds for maples in the tree layer. And grey around the cloud edges at the top to show an approaching storm. At the bottom, we agreed that I'd add a little wool/mohair I had left to make the whitecaps stand out a bit - they actually look a little frothy and very authentic.

Here's the finished blanket with, I think, fifteen colours in total.

I always say to anyone who's ordered something that there's no obligation and they have to love it before they buy it. I like to have the item ready for presentation and on display on a special rack for the person's arrival and viewing. After a short silence as she admired it, I heard:

"It's exactly what I want."

Nothing more needed, I was thrilled (and a tad relieved). We had fun looking over the blanket together and talking about it.

Even though we'd chosen colours and discussed the blanket design, I was still winging it a bit and drawing on my own memories. So to hear that this blanket will be enjoyed and appreciated by someone else with special Georgian Bay memories is wonderful for me.

Studio Visits

Studio visits are one of my favourite ways to show off my work. (Craft fairs have become a close second.)  As well, visitors sometimes bring something for me to see that I find interesting and artistically expanding. Most often I will receive a request from a friend or new person about a certain item, or just to see what I do with all this weaving stuff I talk about.

Earlier this week I had a memorable studio visit by a woman from the Arctic doing a short-term work stint in my community. My first question when she arrived was what brought her to Williams Lake, and my second question was how did she hear about me?

She said she'd searched online for weaving stores, so calling me that was a nice start.  She wanted to look at travel shawls and I had them all out for her to see (a huge advantage when there's a visiting plan, as I have out what's requested and the studio is reasonably tidy).  Once she'd seen them, she meandered over to the blankets and I returned to what I'd been doing before she arrived. But almost immediately she started gushing over the Resilience blanket, which I wove last fall and blogged about in December.

She loved the colours, texture and everything about it, and knew it would be far more useful for her than a smaller travel shawl. Then I told her the Resilience story and she loved it even more. It was a very quick and definite selection.

On the way out to her car, she met the Resilience image photographer and told us more about her life in the Arctic. As she drove out the driveway, he and I were already looking at the map.

The Resilience blanket story was really important to her, which is important for me to remember - the story part. It was so gratifying for me to see someone fall in love with my work right in front of me. Business is always secondary when that happens.

Enjoy and stay warm!

Starting Another Long Run

Starting a set of blankets is like starting off for a long run. Once the blankets are ready to weave, there's already been a fair bit of time invested in warping the loom - winding bobbins, beaming the warp, threading, sleying, tieing on and then weaving a header. Oh, and fixing any little threading or sleying errors. :-)

Then we go. Shuttles are lined up, pattern is fresh in my mind, the rhythm begins. Mmmm.

For a long run (going by memory, certainly not by recent experience), usually there's been some prep time to rest, then I plan my route, dress for the weather and I'm off.

It's physical, psychological, even a bit spiritual. A long warp waiting for me is like the open road or a beautiful trail. I just need to remember to pace myself to get myself to the finish line with a smile.

Make More!

When I started Cariboo Handwoven about eight years ago, I did the whole business plan thing, from writing down my vision through all the steps leading to specific tasks. At that time, my vision was "My blankets have a waiting list!" I thought it was a most appropriate vision for how I wanted my work to be in demand and appreciated. Then I'd be sure to keep busy and have fun in the studio.

Over those years though, my vision has changed a little. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. And what I've learned in those years, after all the planning, is what I really want to do.  

Make more. 

Make more! 

Pump out the towels especially, assess them carefully, and do it better the next time. Apply what I learn to the bigger items, like blankets. High production obviously yields more results than picking the details to death and letting that interference result in making much less. Really, without the quantity of work there can be no quality.

I first read about this concept a few years ago in Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Boyle and Ted Orland, which is a super book for anyone who creates.

In it is a story about potters divided into two groups: one to achieve one perfect product and others to produce as much as possible. The potters aiming for perfection produced nothing because they got stuck seeking perfection whereas the other half of the class achieved their goal. 

I've never forgotten this story. I know there's a balance between quality and quantity, but a quantity of zero yields absolutely no quality at all. Or even much potential.

So, on that note, I'll be making more in my weaving studio through the year.

Love and Gratitude in 2017

This year goes down in my life, and maybe for many others, as one of exceptional love and gratitude. For me it went both ways. I felt and expressed a lot of love and gratitude in 2017 through various personal losses, wildfire evacuations, happier adventures and friendships. And I received a lot of love and gratitude, for which I am very thankful.

For Cariboo Handwoven, 2017 wrapped up with a beautiful comment recently posted in a June blog of cotton blankets. Here it is (beginning with a lovely salutation):

Hello Goddess of the Loom, 

My daughter knew exactly what she wanted to get her brother when he went away to university: a blanket. When we saw your creations at the Immaculata Craft Fair in Ottawa we were sold on the first of the cotton blankets in your blogpost. We bought it.  

When my son opened the box on Christmas morning, he couldn't believe how beautiful the blanket was. He took it with him out to our friend's winter wonderland of a Quebec cottage and we took turns wrapping ourselves in it all day and night.  

I know he will cherish this blanket for many years. It already has a name: couette sans bout. As his dear baby blankie was called couette avec bou, as it was a quilt (couette) with (avec) a little edge seam (bou). This is his blanket (couette) without (sans) the little edge seam (bou), although I tried to tell him that there is a seam.  

Enough of that. I just wanted to let you know that your blanket will bring much comfort to a hardworking and slightly lonely McGill student over the next many many months.

Awfully nice! And this is the blanket:

I've been in touch directly with the commenter, and we've had some fun with emails and photos. She is not only warm and kind, but very appreciative of my work.

Perfect way to end 2017 with love and gratitude - in both directions.

Thank you all.

Designing a Custom Blanket

Two Williams Lake friends who moved to Victoria last year ordered a wool blanket in the fall. I thought I'd share my process from start to finish in designing a wool blanket for their home, as well as our enjoyable collaboration through emails and photos back and forth.

They wanted the blanket for their den with this mottled carpet of light and dark shades of greyish-brown:

And the blanket was to go nicely with a favourite pillow:

The pillow's background is that it was created by a cross-cultural project of contemporary Aboriginal art, called the Kaltjiti Arts, owned by the artists. The paintings are created by artists in central Australia and then the designs are woven into pillows and rugs in Kashmir. This design is based on the Tali Tali Pompey painting.

The blanket warp consists of wide lines of dark brown, medium brown and a lighter heathery shade. I wove the blanket ends with a line of diamonds in very dark grey (almost black) then there are alternating charcoal and red diamonds. The charcoal has a narrow line of white; the warm red has light grey to avoid a ‘candy cane’ look. Crossing the warp of brown tones with greys helps to bring out the pattern nicely but subtley, and will complement the carpet.

When I sent this photo of the blanket on the loom, it was to ask if there was too much red or anything that should be addressed in a second one (I knew this one would sell if the friends didn't like it). 

But I received this reassuring response:

We LOVE our blanket....please carry on weaving!!  It is simply splendid!

Then I sent a photo of the blanket right off the loom, unfringed and looking stiff and raw.

Again, more lovely reactions:

We are sending a Definite Yes for the beautiful blanket so it can almost 'officially' be ours.  We do love it!  

And here's the final version, not too surprising after all the lead-up.

And then the grand finale email:

Your parcel arrived this afternoon, was signed for, and opened in great anticipation!  We have to tell you that we absolutely love the blanket you have designed and woven for us. It is truly beautiful!  We couldn't be happier with the lovely colours and patterns you have woven into it. 

Jane, I also want to thank you so much for all the enjoyment I have felt as you and I corresponded through the exciting course of planning the blanket.  It was a unique and rewarding experience. 

[We] have certainly been able to see how much thought and heart you put into your weaving and your art. It must been very hard to part with your creations!  We are grateful that you are able to do that! 

Expect us to send more weaving projects your way!

You can tell that these people are very positive. Every email they sent was fun to read and I found the whole project from start to finish very fulfilling and inspiring.

What a great way to end the year.  Thank YOU so much.

Update from the blanket owner in 2019:

I have been meaning to write to tell you how much I enjoyed your Cariboo Handwoven article describing your weaving of our beautiful blanket.  It was such an enjoyable experience with all our emails back and forth during that time.  It allowed us to see your artist's eye and creative process at work. Your blanket has warmed us and our grandchildren since our move to the island.  As people at the coast like to say, it is a 'damp' cold here so it goes to your bones!  Not to ours when we have your blanket to ward off the wet west coast cold!

And one more - thank YOU! :-)

Cariboo Resilience

This blanket has a story, a fairly long one, depending on how you want to look at it. But I'll keep this short.

I blogged through the summer about the British Columbia wildfires and their effects on my community, Williams Lake, and on my friends and family. In some ways, the summer seems a long time ago; in other ways, it doesn't seem that long ago to others.

Pat Teti, my husband, took this photo north of the city in the White Lake burn on the Soda Creek Road. He called this image Resilience and I gave out these postcards at the Medieval Market in November. The photograph shows sprouting Douglas maple in the very recent burn. People loved it.

Then I thought that a Resilience blanket might be a good idea. My plan was to emphasize the charcoal grey with the charred black stumps, and add a splash of the Douglas maple colours roughly in the middle.

SH205 | "Resilience" | 100% wool | 183 cm x 130 cm (72" x 51") | Sold

"Resilience" depicting charred soil surface and blackened stumps

"Resilience" blanket depicting sprouting Douglas maples

Cariboo Resilience will continue in different ways for all of us in 2018, I am quite sure.

Feedback on a Georgian Bay Blanket

After my interview with Sheryl MacKay on CBC Radio's North by Northwest in late October (starts at about 1:45), I received an order for a Georgian Bay blanket. The one that Sheryl was admiring in the interview sold by noon that day, but I planned to make another on my next blanket warp anyway. And off it went to a CBC listener in British Columbia, who grew up on Georgian Bay and knows and loves it well.

Georgian Bay blanket - Water below and rock with lichen above

Georgian Bay blanket - layer of trees with sky and clouds above

I was really touched by the buyer's comments in an email:

WOW!
The photos do not do your weaving justice. The richness of the colours, the touch of the fibers, the textures created and the amazing patterns have brought your vision of the bay into reality. I think that you've truly captured many senses experienced by being there. This will certainly be a focus in our home and a topic of discussion for years to come. Thanks for your dedication to detail.

Thank YOU!  (And I know my photos aren't great but I'm not trying to be a photographer also. :-) )

Jan. 2018 update from the owner: Well the blanket is permanently located in the living room for immediate use and visual enjoyment. All family and friends truly appreciate its beauty and your workmanship.

I hope you enjoy your blanket for many, many years.  I think you will.

"The towels are here!"

I mailed six towels earlier this month ...

Georgian Bay Towel

Shades of green with narrow stripes of Tuscan gold (left) and mauve (right)

Different twill weaves in soft shades of greens and blues

... and received this in reply:

The towels are here! And they are gorgeous! How lovely to have seen them (or their near neighbour) on your loom!! Thank you Jane. I look forward to seeing you again.

Yup, that's a big reason I do this! :-)))

Update: Here's what the buyer shared with me in late December:

I gave away all but one of your beautiful towels, 2 in Vancouver, one to California and another to Halifax, and one to PEI and I have received enthusiastic thanks from all corners!  What a treat to be able to share your wonderful work.

"Thank you for all you do to make the world more beautiful."

I received this utterly amazing compliment just a few minutes ago. I am so touched, so inspired, and so grateful that the new owner of a travel shawl wrote me with her especially kind words.

I didn't even get a photo of it! They sell too quickly!

Thank you so much.

A Special Towel Order

A long-time friend - gee, we go back to our university days working together as summer students in our forestry jobs - well, she has been a big fan of my towels. After I blogged about being back in my studio, what would appear in my inbox but an order for eight towels.

She wrote:

If you have any tea towels similar to the ones below I’d like to get 8 of them please.  Or you could send pictures of what you have in inventory, and I’ll pick from that.

I plan to wrap them with some black currant jelly I made as Christmas gifts.  

All of the towels in the photos she pasted in from my past blog posts had some bright red. So my interpretation for the order of eight was to include bright red in each one. Totally cool idea to wrap homemade jars of black currant jelly in a towel!

I didn't have too many towels left that were that bright and I'd just begun a towel project, so I decided to weave all of them at once for my friend. All her gifts would come from the same warp, which I suppose represents a certain unity from the giver to her recipients.

Here are the towels on the front beam of the loom and then unfurled on the floor.

Little bits of bright red are visible on the edge of the cloth near the centre of the front beam

Unfurling the warp - always a delight for the weary weaver ...

I asked my friend if she wanted photos of each towel to approve of it before I sent it. The response?

Jane those are beautiful! I love them, and don't need to review them.   Please just send the 8 you are thinking of.  I am very excited to get them. 

And this was my way of integrating bright red differently into a variety of towels.

Update:

And here's what my friend wrote to me when she saw the towels with her own eyes:

What gorgeous colours you picked. Some more blue, some more green, and all with some red. You are a Master to create all those variations at one time.  There's even one that sure looks like Christmas trees in the pattern.  Couldn't figure out just how you did that,  but then saw the pictures on your post tonight.  What timing!

That was a special towel order indeed!  Thank YOU!

Blanket Spa

Cariboo Handwoven not only produces wool blankets, but I offer free handwashing to blanket owners, whether it's local pick-up and delivery or through shipping. Recently, I found it necessary to do a little rehab work on a well-used blanket. I had the satisfaction of doing some minor repairs that will prolong the blanket's life, appearance and usefulness.

Two local friends, a couple, bought blankets for each other several years ago. I remember well the studio visit and then the Medieval Market visit at my booth a year or two later. Each of them took time to select the perfect blanket for their spouse, and they obviously chose well.

I'd heard that their blankets were two treasures they'd packed for the wildfire evacuation this summer. It really warms my heart to think that their unique blankets were so personally important for their function as well as their connection to home. I recently emailed them about washing their blankets while the September sunshine lasts, and here's what I heard back:

Boy, during the fires, those blankets got dragged around from Gavin Lake to the evac centre in Prince George, Chetwynd, Moberly Lake and Aleza Lake Research Forest and back home finally. They were really nice to have along.

I picked up the blankets on Friday and was gently warned that the Georgian Bay one had seen daily use in years of ownership. Yes, how true, I noticed ... little pulls from cat claws, a huge pull that had been knotted tight, and I later found a missing fringe.

The little pulls I gently eased flat with a darning needle, the huge pull I unknotted carefully with a sharp sewing pin (please don't do that again!) and eased flat, and the missing fringe I fixed:

12 new threads were spliced into the blanket and then twisted as fringe.
The ends at the top were trimmed after washing.

Then both blankets went into a laundry tub of sudsy water, not too hot and not too cool. I let them sit and luxuriate for quite awhile to bask in the suds and ease away all that travel dirt and stress. After several rinses, they had a machine spin on gentle, and then went out on the line to dry by soaking up some moonlight overnight and the next morning's soft sunlight.

Left: Georgian Bay wool blanket showing the layers of water with whitecaps and then rock.
Right: Wool blanket woven in twill blocks with approx. 50% white handspun wool/mohair.

Out in the studio the two blankets each had a good pressing with the iron. Up one side, down the other. Turn over and repeat. I fixed any last little pulls I'd missed and trimmed the top of the new fringe. Then the blankets were placed flat on the floor to cool and rest. This is a blanket spa after all.

I'm returning the blankets today. The Georgian Bay blanket looks vastly softer and fluffier, and the other one in twill blocks also has a rejuvenated look and feel to it.

I learned a few things from all of this and was delighted to take on this little task, especially for friends. And I was lucky to receive a container of home-grown honey in appreciation - thank you back!

Forced Paralysis

I don't want to inundate blog readers with accounts of my Non-Weaving Summer of 2017. So if you're interested in new weaving projects or what I'm doing in the studio, you might want to skip this one. The British Columbia wildfires have changed a lot of summer plans - in fact, for just about everyone, I'm quite sure.

I've been away from my home and studio for over a month now except for two nights when the evacuation order was lifted and I returned home to check on things and pick up a little more that I wanted with me. Since then, I've been living north 250 km in Prince George where the air has been mostly fairly clear, although the fire hazard here is also at Extreme, just as it is in the Cariboo. It will only take some lightening strikes, or - I hate to say it - someone tossing a cigarette butt out their car window or illegally lighting a campfire to create all the chaos I know is happening elsewhere.

How do you describe over a month of staying away from home because either you've been evacuated under legal order, or your area is on evacuation alert and the smoke and risk are so unbearable that you leave anyway? How do you express your thanks to all the incredible individuals, from literally all over the world, who are working really hard for British Columbia's forests and individuals' private property? How do you similarly thank all the many people and businesses who have helped you out in some way? And how do you sit around much longer without going nuts?

This is what I call forced paralysis. One day at a time. Keep your expectations low but do as much as you can. Repeat the next day. Do your best to see this as some sort of opportunity to reflect on your life, help and support others, do things differently. Or something like that, right?

And, does one transition easily out of forced paralysis? Twill be interesting to find out.

Going Back in Time

Taking a break from the major interruption in so many lives - yes, I am still evacuated and unable to be in my studio ... so let me go back in time for a moment.

When you've been pumping out a lot of handwoven blankets and towels for the last few years, I guess it's inevitable to look at something from earlier and think ... "Wow, that's not bad." Or, "Hmmm, I actually did that?" Most of my projects are original patterns designed from scratch because if I want to continue a design into another project with new colours, by the time I get to the actual warp threading I'm on to something new, something I just must try, something (maybe?) better.

Recently I took a big cotton blanket from my studio that has a lengthwise threading error and started using it in the house. I always want to know how my blankets and towels 'work' in daily use, beyond all the really nice comments I receive. I need to know for myself. So this slightly flawed work I took out of the inventory to test and scrutinize in regular use.

I looked at it after awhile and thought - that's not bad. It's just herringbone in alternating colours in the warp. It's so simple and yet so rich and interesting. Hmmm, maybe I should go back to that and see what I can do now?

That's inspiring! Hope I'm back in my studio before long.

The Misleading Simplicity of "Evacuate"

My last post was about British Columbia's war on fire but our love and understanding for each other. Thanks for all those pageviews, I loved to see every one. :-)

But when things get really smoky and imminent, you make the voluntary decision to leave before it's mandatory. There's not much I can do to prevent my house from burning, but to get out of the smoke and risk as easily and safely as possible is probably a good idea. My studio essentials were packed last weekend in a handmade grass bag from Ghana - which represented about 1% of all the material there. Here's that special 1%:

Twill Thrills, edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.
I think I'm almost ready for this, so better take it!

Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland is a classic among artists.
I've read it several times and highlighted all over it.
The View From the Studio Door is not quite as essential, but it's worth taking.

The recent Susan Point show Spindle Whorl at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
This book has a lifetime of inspiration for me.

Carol Strickler's contribution to the weaving community is a new classic.
There's even a Facebook group for weavers to post their projects using drafts from this book.
They give the page and number for the draft to share with other weavers.

As well, I brought:

• My big hardbound notebook with notes like randomly entered projects, heddle counts on each harness for the two looms, price comparisons for different yarns, some recent thoughts and observations on differences between 3-3-1-1 and 3-2-1-2 treadle tie-ups, various lists and other critical information to help me get back on track later
• Personal photos of special people in my life
• Handwoven wall hanging from Peru that Pat brought back from one of his trips
• Wooden cash box that Pat made - it's perfect for craft fairs and I'm kinda proud of it
• Chequebook and 2017 files for expenses, vehicle, bank
• A likely lifetime supply of Cariboo Handwoven labels to sew onto finished items. Even a small box like I have will last a long time (you know how when you order anything printed and for about another $10 you can get another, like, 500 - so why not?)
• Two skeins of recently finished handspun wool from local fleece ready for handwashing

Then things then got bulky after what I next crammed into my car:

• Three big bags of local Icelandic roving, the last available from a friend's flock, one bag with me and two stored in the city - I cannot bear to let this stuff go without a struggle
• A few bags of wool blankets
• One bag of cotton blankets
• Armload of 70 or so towels in a big bag
• Bag of hemmed but unwashed towels
• Standing rack - currently a great clothes hanger in our Prince George bedroom
• Short blanket rack - another item made by Pat that I won't let go of easily without a struggle

The interesting thing about evacuating is how personal it is.  After the obvious essentials like some clothing, toiletries, important documents and any medication, each of us makes countless decisions as we roam through our house. (And ruminate in the middle of the night with a promise to add one more small thing in the morning.) I've had an evacuation list ready each summer probably since the fires of 2003, but this one got more serious.

Some people focus on memories, others on having what they need for the future.  I think I'm in the middle. :-)

The actual simplicity of evacuation though is really how little we need when we have each other.