Okay - you might wonder what this has to do with fibre art:
Well - a few days ago I awoke to still pouring rain and found part of the driveway flooded, with water rising and pouring right over the top of the stone wall edging it. A quick clearing of the drain, some loud sucking and gurgling sounds, and it was all gone and back to normal in minutes. I've been thinking about how that can mirror the shift from being in the intensity of a class or workshop with the flood of learning, doing and relating rising in momentum and then, once it's over, the sudden void or space. There is just one class and the exhibition left of the six week long textile art class that I've been taking and unlike previous weeks, my homework is complete and I can work on other pieces that have been waiting since before the class - or start something new - maybe arising from some of what I've just learned. I am used to doing some fibre work everyday, but I noticed that with the structure abruptly gone, I felt that difference - like I had developed a bit of dependency on it and had to stimulate that inner muscle of will a bit, whereas at first when the class was on, I was eagerly wanting to get back to the work I had been doing, even as I was also enjoying the learning from the class. This is an issue I keep encountering - how to stay tuned in with my need to make my art and also to fold in new learning from classes. I am signed up for two classes in January that I feel excited about - the Mark Making With Machine textile art course at the Victoria College of Art with Lesley Turner and Jude Hill's online Advanced Cloth to Cloth. Aside from the substantial other learning and benefits involved from classes, the more techniques that I try, the more possibilities I will know to include in future work - but that likely means postponing making more involved pieces for awhile. What feels most successful for me is when I find a way to weave what I'm learning into a completed piece, and I have done that, although at a reduced quantity.
I wonder about what is growing in the darkness that I cannot yet see and notice what I am pulled toward or pushing away from.
Last year I largely delved into handstitch. Here's a yarn and thread tree I was stitching into felt just before Christmas - I would like to explore further with felt:
Other then for some piecing, my machine has sat idle. So it was good to make a journal gift and realize how rusty I've gotten since not regularly using free motion stitch. 
I will soon be using my machine alot, at the Mark Making course I will be starting next week. But I will also be handstitching in the Contemporary Woven Boro class in mid January - so it is going to be a very busy learning time ahead! And I have other areas of focus I'd love to explore, too - so I will continue to sit with the possibilities over the last days of 2010. 
