The Studio 66 retreat was last month and I'm still trying to get myself organized.
Full disclosure... Studio 66 is the work of three amazing women who have been my teachers and friends for several years. They, like so many of my fiber friends, are very generous and mean the world to me. So when they asked me, a shrinking violet, to demonstrate the bow loom weaving I learned with Marilyn Romatka at Convergence, I immediately agreed. Silly me!
Somehow along the way I managed to turn a brief demo into a whole class on the subject. I've been trying to lure some non-fiber friends into the fiber world by teaching them this simple but fun technique and it didn't seem that much of a stretch to teach it to a group. I figured maybe 5-10 people would be interested enough to sign up for the class, so I decided to put together kits with all the supplies needed and to make the looms in advance.
Then people started signing up. Thirty-five of them! I decided to put together fifty kits to accommodate any stragglers and a few friends I'm going to be teaching later. It was actually fun assembling the kits. I wanted everyone to be able to work with colors they like, so I shopped for lots of pretty beads and pearl cotton in many colors. And somehow ended up with enough materials to make 60 kits like this. Hardest part was cutting sponges into several pieces and then cutting five slots in each piece to use for a "bridge" to organize the warp on the loom.
The bow looms are made by taping a large paper clip to each end of a 1/4" dowel. I cleaned out three local hardware stores trying to buy enough dowels to make 80 looms (for 60 kits plus anticipated breakage). And got some strange looks from three different store clerks who couldn't resist asking why I was buying all those dowels.
In the midst of all this preparation, I had to make a business trip to Berkeley two weeks before the retreat. I hauled along a few of the looms and supplies to make some samples to show the class. And found that I didn't have time to do much. So I wisely decided that it would be more effective to show samples of pieces in all phases of construction.
Here's a close-up of one of my samples to show what the fabric looks like. It's a pretty tightly-packed weft-faced weave.
So far, everything going according to plan except for the samples I had hoped to make. Until the morning I drove home from Berkeley.
Started with a little sore throat. Which got worse and worse on the 7-hour drive. By the time I got home, all I could do was drag my pitiful self off to my chair, where I pretty much spent the next week. When I should have been finishing my kits!
Which takes me to the day before I was to leave for the retreat. A visit to the doctor resulted in a prescription for a heavy-duty antibiotic to treat what was now a nasty bacterial infection in my throat, and approval to go to the mountains as long as I didn't tax myself and got plenty of rest. Ha ha.
Back story: I had to leave the first retreat early to take care of a sick pet. Helped at registration but couldn't stay for the second retreat due to a family wedding. Beginning to think that there's a curse keeping me away this event, and until Friday morning, I really thought I was going to have to cancel and let my friends down. Not that the retreat wouldn't have been just as great without my class, but I don't like to break promises.
Doctor promised that the medicine would work wonders quickly. Thursday evening I frantically finished assembling the kits. Friday morning, I woke up feeling a little better, so my friend Pat and I piled into my car and drove up to Forest Home.
I was able to work registration as usual. This is a treat for me, giving me a chance to greet lots of friends and meet new people. That night featured a lovely dinner, followed by a make-and-take lesson on making rolled paper beads. My friend Wendy, who taught the class, knew that I wouldn't be able to do everything, so she had me choose my paper in advance and made a bracelet for me. Isn't it pretty?
There were also several vendors. I didn't plan on buying anything at the retreat, but my friend Sydney, who makes beautiful gourd art pieces (among her many other talents) had three gourds decorated with seahorses and I couldn't resist. I did pass on a very large one and a medium-sized one, because I just don't have room for them. And later kicked myself because someone else bought them.
I also bought a very healthy cotton plant from Sydney, who gave a demo on growing and spinning cotton at the retreat. And so far have managed not to kill it despite my talent for killing off plant life.
And I couldn't resist this angora from Sandy at Desert Bloom Angora. Because I needed more fiber (chortle). I haven't spun with angora yet, but this was so soft and just the perfect shades of blue.
Every retreat has featured a different dyeing technique. This year we dyed silk. The retreat provided each of us with torn silk strips, along with all the materials, equipment, and instruction needed.
We brushed the paints on our pre-soaked silk, rolled the strips in plastic wrap, put in baggies, and stuck them in the microwave for up to 10 minutes, depending on the amount of fiber being processed.
As usual, I was so busy doing, I forgot to take pictures until later in the day, but you can see a small sample of the results on the drying rack.
I have four lovely bundles with a turquoise base (looks blue here, but it's a gorgeous turquoise in real life) and several different accent colors.
The Studio 66 gang had several items woven from these strips, including shawls and pillow covers. Don't yet know what I'll do with mine -- perhaps a scarf...
Then came my class. Got there early to set up and I had a student already waiting for it to begin. She was a charming lady, and helped me get organized. As students arrived, I got them started with their looms and I didn't even have time to get nervous. It was a fun class -- everyone was attentive and courteous, and I hope they had as much fun taking it as I did teaching it.
Happy Weavers
I HIGHLY recommend this technique to anyone wanting to get people (even children) started with weaving. It's inexpensive, simple to teach basic concepts, and gives new weavers a fast success with a finished product in just a few hours. Marilyn Romatka has an excellent book, Creative Crafts of the World, that gives instruction in this and a number of other crafts. I have the Kindle version as well as a hard copy.
All and all, it was a great weekend with many long-time friends, and many new ones. I could go on for hours about all that happened. Someday I'll get around to telling the lizard story from the first retreat and this year's follow-up. But I'll close here with with evidence of just how great a time I had -- After I got home and unloaded my car, I sat down to rest a minute and woke up several hours later. Then went to bed and slept for a solid twelve hours. This from an insomniac who can't sleep more than three hours at a time. Can't wait for the 2015 retreat!
Saturday Spinners had a dying workshop last month. Seems like every time I get into dyeing, we use a different technique, and this was the easiest yet. Each of us dumped our prepared fiber into a pot of water with a little vinegar, and brought it up to a simmer. We had a couple dozen different colored dyes mixed in cups, and when the fiber was ready, we poured small amounts of the dyes directly on the fibers. I dyed half a pound of combed merino top, and the results are the closest to what I intended that I've ever gotten.
I have an uncomfortable feeling that the spun yarn may blend into the color of a fresh bruise, but I'll get around to spinning it pretty soon and we'll see.
A dear friend gave me another knitting machine a few weeks ago -- this one a bulky knitter which is now at Newton's getting a tune-up. Now I have the whole array of possible gauges. What fun!
I've been at a standstill with knitting lessons while I struggle to learn to use the lace carriage.
Gave myself a break and knitted some sock blanks -- one for a friend to test and one for a door prize at Studio 66 (more on that in my next blog post). Wendy chose some shades of green and yellow. Although the colors aren't all that appealing in this photo, I had a chance to see her knitting socks out of the blank last week and they look beautiful.
The cool thing about these sock blanks is that you machine knit two strands of yarn at once. Then you knit one sock from each of the strands. Because they were dyed as one, you get socks that pretty much match. Some slight variations in color where the dyes don't soak through evenly, but that just adds a little interest IMHO.
At the end of April, I got to study with another fiber arts superstar, Amy Tyler. Amy's business is Stone Sock Fibers, and you need to visit her site to look at photos of her gorgeous handspun yarns and knitted garments. Amy teaches loads of workshops on knitting and spinning, and the GLASG guild hosted four workshops with her. I was able to take a couple of vacation days to attend three of them.
The first was a day-long workshop called "Creating the Yarn You Want." When I opened up the packet Amy provided and saw all the sample project cards waiting to be filled up, my heart sank. I thought that at my skill level I would never be able to keep up with the class. But it turned out to be a fun, no-stress class and I was pretty surprised at the end of the day to realize that not only had I kept pace, I actually had some very pleasing results.
We learned ways to control the thickness and twist in our yarns, and how to ply balanced yarns.
Much of the time was focused on duplicating yarns. We were given a commercial yarn and asked to match it for thickness. Then we made some samples, traded with our neighbors, and had to match the thickness of one sample and the twist of another.
We also did quite a bit of experimenting with twist and drafting speeds.
I came home from this class feeling like I might actually be a pretty good spinner one of these days.
In addition to the many samples above, I had a big skein of singles created throughout the day. Think I'll Navajo ply this one of these days and use it to accent a triangle shawl.
The second full-day class was "Blending Colors at the Wheel." I have to confess that I am color-challenged. I tend to stick to the same handful of "safe" colors that I prefer (reds, blues, and purples) and am not terribly adventurous about mixing colors and using those outside my comfort zone. So I purposely tried to choose other colors when we had the opportunity to make selections.
The first thing we studied was the way thickness of spinning affects color. Amy gave us samples of two different colors of top and had us spin a thick sample and a thin sample of each. Then we plied thin to thin and thick to thick. We also did the same with two different colors of roving.
Not surprising, the color differences stood out more in the thicker samples, while they tended to blend together visually in the thin samples.
Then we worked on pre-drafting roving. Here are some sample skeins of some lovely Coopworth wool called "Fairy Dust" from Hidden Valley Farm.
For the sample on the left, we were instructed to create a thick yarn with low twist. On the right is my "default" yarn. You can see how the colors in the thick yarn have kept more of their individuality.
We did a fun study of relative percentages. Instructed to choose a light value and a dark value I chose a rusty brown (outside comfort zone) and a cream (safe). We blended them 25% dark, 75% light, 50/50, and 75% dark, 25% light. The result is three different but harmonious yarns. I just love these three yarns, even though I would not have chosen this brown in the real world.
In this exercise, we chose four random colors. I picked green (ok), coral (ugh) and blue and gray (pretty).
Then we spun the largest bit of color (gray) into one single. We broke up the other colors into smaller pieces, mixed them at random and spun another single.
Finally we plied the two singles together.
I'm still not wild about the coral color, but I do like the overall result.
This sample is from my favorite exercise. I picked three colors I like - red, cream, and medium gray, and one I don't - brown.
We broke each into bits of various lengths, then randomly selected one bit at a time to spin two singles. Finally, we plied the two singles together. The result looks a bit like the fractals I spun a few months ago, but much more random. I love this yarn and one of these days I'm going to duplicate it in larger quantity.
After class, a few of us went to dinner with Amy. What a fun evening!
The third day we had a guild meeting, lunch, and a half-day class on "Spinning with Silk Hankies." This was the most challenging of the three for me. I had never spun silk except blended with alpaca, let alone worked with hankies.
Class began with a "hand spa." No matter how smooth you think your hands are, this silk snags like nobody's business. After an exfoliating scrub, we slathered on lotion, and still the silk snagged - just not as much.
Working with the hankies turned out not to be as difficult as I had expected, but still much harder than wool. We got to pick a couple of different pieces out of a pile of beautifully colored hankies (just a section of them shown here) to work with.
Then we learned how to separate the layers, draft them into gossamer ribbon-like strands, and spin them. We played with the amount of twist, did some Navajo ply, and created a two-ply marled yarn by trying to match the twist in a silk strand with wool and plying them together. I still have some exercises to finish but this was a good introduction to spinning silk. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I bought several packets of hankies to dye and spin from Nancy's Custom Handweaving (she usually brings a load of fibers, books, and tools to guild meetings).
I thoroughly enjoyed all three classes and would take any of them again. I learned a lot but there's a lot more I could learn from Amy. She is a personable, engaging teacher, and her instruction was clear and easy to follow. I just read through the handouts she provided -- they're terrific, and will help me remember all the information Amy shared in the classes.
I have more to talk about, but it's going to have to wait for my next post. Coming up... Studio 66 Retreat 2013!
Last weekend the Saturday Spinners were invited to hold our March meeting at the home of Susie Henzie, who is pretty famous in the fiber arts community for her collection of spinning and weaving tools from all over the world. A small part of her collection was displayed at the Los Angeles County Fair a couple of years ago.
Her house is amazing. Everywhere you look in the living area, there are swans. Wall cabinets full of figurines, light fixtures, faucets. She says it's one of those collections like I have -- you mention once that you like something and suddenly everyone you know is giving you that thing. For the record, I DO NOT WANT any more Betty Boop things. Here and there amidst all the swans you can spot some modern spinning wheels and the occasional antique fiber tool.
Then Susie led us to the back of the house, where the major part of her collection is displayed in a three-story addition. Wow! There were looms, spinning wheels, reels, spindles, hackles, distaffs, miniatures, and all manner of fiber tools packed in there. Because they're mostly made of wood and many are quite ancient, they vary in condition from crumbling to pristine. Made me realize that a) my collection of fiber equipment is not all that much and b) I really don't need any more spinning wheels. Or other stuff. Except for maybe the electric reel that came last week. More on that some other time.
I'd never met her before but Susie is very gracious and is one of those rare people with whom you feel at ease immediately. She had such interesting stories to tell about items in her collection and how she acquired them. She's in the process of donating most of her collection to the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista, CA. Despite the name, they already have a weaving barn with over 50 looms ranging from Civil War era to modern, and an active group of weavers. It will probably be several years before a new building is complete and exhibits are ready to view, so in the meantime, here is just a small glimpse of her collection. There should be more photos but most of time I was so stunned by everything I completely forgot to take any.
On the extreme right, you can see the end of a pendulum-type spinning wheel. First I've seen except on the internet. On the left is a barn loom (so named because its construction is similar to that once used in framing barns) used in "Roots."
Beautiful matching chair and wheel. Next to are two ivory-trimmed wheels. You can just see the top finials of each.
The "blond" reel was used in "Practical Magic."
Just part of the overwhelming number of items in Susie's collection.
Look at the beautiful painting on this wheel - especially the distaff.
And its less ornate but equally lovely neighbor.
After the meeting, one of our members mentioned that she was going to stop by Mood, which is only a short distance from Susie's house. FIELD TRIP! So five of us trekked over there and had a grand old time roaming the aisles. While it's nowhere near the size of the New York store you see in Project Runway, they had an impressive array of designer fabrics, trims, and gorgeous buttons. I was not that impressed with the ambiance -- felt like an intruder the entire time we were there. But I guess I could stand the discomfort if I wanted to buy fabric for a special occasion dress.
Just one of several massive aisles of fabrics at Mood.
During introductions at a recent GLASG meeting, I blurted out that my special skill is spending my paycheck on fibers and tools. I was not surprised to see how many other members agreed that this is high on their skill inventories. I think most of us fiber fanatics love the tactile and visual sensations we get from our stashes and our equipment. Fortunately, I haven't been bitten by the spindle spinning bug, but I know many spinners who have more spindles than they will ever use, just because they are drawn by the beauty of the wood or the craftsmanship of the artist. For Lent this year, I am giving up bacon and guilt over my shopping habits. I think doing both will make me a better and healthier person.
My friend Gail from Weaver's Cupboard and I went to the February meeting of the Greater Los Angeles Spinners Guild (GLASG), where Gwen Powell gave a seminar on using the blending board and woolen spinning. Gwen has a Certificate of Excellence in Handspinning from the HGA and teaches spinning, weaving, crochet, and dyeing. She was instrumental in bringing back the garneting board from obscurity under the friendlier name "blending board." She worked with Clemes & Clemes on the design and the result is a board created with the fiber know-how of a master spinner and the craftsmanship of a major fiber tool maker. After seeing some of their boards in action I find them tempting but for the time being, I'm sticking with my less beautiful but fully functional handmade board.
Gwen demonstrated how to create a batt and then pull off several nearly identical striped rolags. She also showed how to add inclusions (little bits of stuff to add interest) to the batt. Finally, she showed how easily the rolags could be spun into woolen using a long draw technique.
Easy for her, that is. She has become so expert at using her blending board that she had it loaded with fiber and created rolags in just a minute or two.
It took me about 20 minutes to get these rolags off my blending board. I clearly have some issues with consistency. We used some 1/4" dowels to wrap the rolags around - perhaps a large dowel would help.
I also put some inclusions in the purple/blue set, which mostly fell out later. But it was a lot of fun and I'm going to enjoy using this tool now that I have some clues about what can be done with it.
Yesterday, I had a few minutes to spin the rolags. I really tried to stick with the long-draw woolen technique Gwen showed, but I struggled. I think part (but not all) of the problem was the consistency of my rolags. Some parts drafted easily. Other parts required tugging to get any fibers out. And I kept catching myself reverting to my worsted style. Since my singles were so inconsistent, I decided to Navajo ply without regard to color to get a very chaotic yarn. I love how the colors turned out. Wonder what I can do with 18 yards of chaos?
Gwen will be giving a full workshop for my Saturday Spinners group in a couple of months and I'm really looking forward to learning more from her.
One of my local guild's members sent out an email through the grapevine a couple of weeks ago about selling her Pat Green Triple Picker. Lucky for me, I check my email obsessively and was the first to respond to her message. As much as I like my Kaydessa box picker, I can prepare only a few ounces of fiber in an hour. While the Pat Green can go through several POUNDS of fiber in an hour. You can get an idea of its size from this photo -- the picker is sitting on a porch swing that seats two adults. I'm still keeping the Kaydessa -- it can go to workshops with me, but the Pat Green will be my go-to tool.
This picker needs a little attention -- it's a bit rusty and the wood needs some care, but for the price, I couldn't have been happier. A little elbow grease and it will be ready to go. And just in time. At the GLASG meeting, I won a bag full of unwashed alpaca. Looked pretty horrible, but after washing, it's a beautiful light fawn color. It was already a bit matted and washing matted it a little more, so it's going to need a ride through the picker before it can be carded.
Ever have one of those days where you couldn't do anything right? Friday I took another machine knitting class at Newton's Yarn Country. This session was on punch lace (aka thread lace) and using the lace carriage.
For the life of me, I couldn't even remember how to cast on. Had to sneak a peak at my instruction book because I wasn't going to admit it. And still had to ask for help. And at one critical point, I ran the carriage over the bed without adding a necessary thread and got to learn how to manually pick up and re-knit dropped stitches.
Unfortunately, I didn't think to have Newton's check out my lace carriage in advance. It was skipping stitches and knitting some in unintended places, so I left it to get some TLC. The punch lace, though, was pretty easy to do and I also learned a new binding off technique. Here I'm in the process of binding off a swatch.
I'm not sure what I would use it for, but this technique makes an interesting textured fabric with the heavy yarn overlaid by a lightweight thread.
This is the purl side of the fabric. You can see where the dark thread is is not caught consistently. Once we added more weight to the fabric, the stitches became more consistent.Still pretty ugly, though.
I read somewhere that there really isn't a right or wrong side in punch lace - you choose based on what's pleasing to your eye - but I don't think there's any question here that this is the wrong side.
And this is the knit side. Still don't like the overall pattern, but I like the look of the lacy thread over the heavier yarn. We used a dark thread over a medium toned yarn to get some contrast between the two. I think this would look interesting (in the right pattern) with a metallic thread or perhaps a different tone of the same color.
Close-up, you can see how the yarn and thread are knitted together.
I also learned to do a hem with a picot edge. I think it makes a really pretty border.
Saturday was the Griffin Dyeworks Fiber Frolic. This is an annual (I think) event held in Monrovia, where they offer a number of classes, have a small vendor hall, and a spinning circle. The Griffin people were super friendly and made it a fun day.
My morning class was on fiber blending with Micki Lawrence from Funhouse Fibers. Micki sells her
handspun yarn and dyed roving on her site. I already knew Micki a little from GLASG, and expected her to lead a
lively and fun class. She did not disappoint. Even though she was a
last minute replacement for the original teacher, she was well-prepared
and I would take another class with her anytime.
Using just the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and a pair of hand carders, we worked on creating a color wheel by blending different proportions of the colors. Then created tints by adding white to each color, and shades by adding black. Aha moment for me. I have to admit I'm intimidated by color theory. I know what pleases me and I know what I definitely don't like. I tend to stick to a few "safe" color choices. But I finally got it that by blending a color that I don't particularly like with a different color, I can create the illusion of an altogether different color. And I really like the texture created by combining two colors.
Micki also demonstrated using a DIY hackle to blend color. Although we ran out of time and didn't get to play with them, she had brought along enough of her handmade hackles for each of us to use, and we were able to buy them. These are made by attaching some plastic hairpicks to a board. Simple. But having drilled through plastic in the past, visions of massive hand injuries made me take no time to decide to buy one. I'm pretty sure nearly everyone in the class bought one as well.
Speaking of buying things, there were shopping opportunities here. Ruth from the Dizzy Ewe was there with piles of her gorgeous fibers. I purchased some lovely cream-colored Polwarth top from her for my afternoon class.
One of the vendors was selling gently used books and I found a copy of Yarns to Dye For. It explains how to achieve different patterning effects such as stripes and faux fairisle in hand-dyed yarns. Having done a fair amount of dyeing using different techniques, I think book is excellent for the crafter who doesn't want to become an expert dyer or invest in expensive equipment, but who still wants to control where color goes in the yarn. Instructions are very clear and uncomplicated. Think my next solo dyeing project will be "watermelon" stripes.
At the Griffin Dyeworks tables, I bought a small bag of cochineal and made myself walk away. ( It's now triple-bagged and in my studio.) Fifteen minutes later, when a friend showed me a handheld tapestry loom she had bought, I was forced to go back for another look. And made a trip to my car with:
Not one, but two tapestry looms made by Jim Hokett of Hokett Would Works. Yes, Would. The first time I saw the name, I thought it was a typo but it turns out to be a pretty clever play on words. The larger loom is 12:"x16" and is made of purple heart and padauk. The smaller one is 7"x8" and is made of pecana (sic) negra and coyote wood. I wish I could take better photos because this one does not do justice to the lovely wood. Jim Hokett doesn't have his own website but his tools are sold by several fiber companies, including Griffin Dyeworks.
These looms are warped by running a thread across the length, through the first notch, and back through the second one. I'm told that the finished product can be removed from the loom by just pushing the warp threads up the notches. Can't picture how that would work if there's enough tension on the warp but guess I'll just have to see.
Here you can see the loom partially warped. Below are sections of the front showing threads alternately going into or coming out of each slot, and the back, showing how the threads are wrapped around every other peg.
Then I found this tiny tool called a barb beater. It's just 1"x2.5" - a perfect size for working with small areas on one of these handheld looms. Also made by Jim Hokett.
Finally, I fell for this beautiful nostepinne made of mahogany and poplar. This is used for winding yarn into a ball. Who could resist this lovely tool? I don't know who made this one.
My afternoon class was on dust dyeing, taught by Elena Dent. I love, love, love any form of dyeing. And Elena made it very simple. She had a dozen or so different salt shakers filled with Cushings dyes cut with cornstarch and a pair of commercial steam table pans filled with hot (not boiling) water simmering on the stove. We added some vinegar to the water, put in a piece or two of fiber, and started sprinkling them with the dye powders.
Elena was knowledgeable and informative, and did a good job taking the mystery out of the process for the class. Only thing I would change is to have a monitor to make sure people took turns nicely. The pans were large enough for two people at a time to share one. Most of my classmates were considerate, but we had one person who shoved her way in front, and filled one pan with her fibers. Then took that batch out and started another before anyone else had a turn. At one point she had one entire pan filled along with half of the other while the rest of us waited our turns. And of course we were all too polite to say anything to her. Maybe drawing numbers would have helped. But I don't think anyone let this ruin the class for them, and I would definitely take another class from Elena.
Some people mixed the colors in the pan and ended up with fairly monochromatic results. One of the women had some silk scarves that she slowly dipped in the pan repeatedly, and ended up with some lovely ombre effects. I wanted multi-hued fibers, so I sprinkled several different colors on my roving. I tried not to agitate the water, so the colors would pretty much stay where sprinkled. This is the first time I've done dyeing where the result was pretty close to what I was trying for.
Despite the care we took, somewhere in the process I managed to felt the fibers a little. But I'm going to spin this if I have to card it again! I'm so curious to see what the colors do when spun.
All in all, it was a great day and I look forward to going again.
Yesterday my friend Holly and I went to the Southwest Regional Alpaca Show in Norco. I have to start out by saying that I'm not one for animal shows. I adore dogs and cats. And I love most other animals at a distance. Close up - not so much. But after this experience, I'll go to another alpaca show anytime.
Having never seen an alpaca except in photographs, I wasn't too sure what to expect. I had heard that they are not outgoing animals and that they tend to spit at people when annoyed, so I planned to keep my distance and was prepared to dodge missiles. That turned out not to be the case. Holly did see one alpaca spit at its handler in the showing ring, but I missed that delight.
Turns out alpacas (at least the ones at this show) are very alert and curious. They don't like to be approached suddenly by strangers and they don't like to be manhandled. Who does? For the most part, they were well-mannered and friendly. In fact, I would say they behaved better than the guests at the show. It amazes me that people will touch an animal without the owner's permission -- and even worse, allow their children to do so.
There were about a dozen vendors with different alpaca products from unprocessed fiber to roving to yarn. Many beautiful handmade shawls, scarves, sweaters, gloves, hats. Handmade soaps, needle felting kits, stuffed alpacas, finger puppets. Some articles made in Peru, but most handmade by the vendors themselves. I thought most of the prices were very reasonable, even for the hand-knitted items.
I couldn't resist these Peruvian-made gloves.
Although I have three bags of alpaca fiber in the process of being carded, the roving was so soft and tempting. I succumbed to this lovely blend of 70% alpaca, 30% silk roving from A Simpler Time in El Cajon. The alpaca fiber is from their champion Calypso Cloud and photos don't do it justice. It has a range of beautiful gray shades from light silver to nearly black. Since I haven't actually spun alpaca yet, I was conservative (for me) and bought only two braids of this fiber - a little over 3 oz. each. Mistake!
As soon as I got home, I put an empty bobbin on Bunny and commenced to
spin. I have to admit the first couple of yards were difficult -- the
fiber drafts so easily I kept breaking the roving and having to join it
again. But after reducing Bunny's tension to almost nothing and
slowing her down a bit, I found that I love spinning this fiber.
This photo shows how fine the fiber wants to spin for me. I haven't gotten anything nearly like this with wool, but the alpaca seems to go this fine without any effort. I've already emailed the vendor about ordering more of this roving because I just fell in love with the texture and the color.
Now I feel a little less intimated by the bags of fiber in my studio. May need to order more bobbins for Bunny so I can have a few different projects going at once.
Back to the show...
After surveying the vendor area, we walked up and down the rows of alpacas. I knew that these animals carry a range of colors and two basic types of fiber, but I was surprised to realize that no two of them looked alike.
Really enjoyed talking with the owners. When we stopped to admire the first group of alpacas, their owner, Joe of La Dolce Vita Alpacas invited us to go into one of their enclosures and pet their alpacas. The animals were a little shy but one stood patiently while we fondled his soft fleece. Good thing my home isn't zoned for farm animals because I might have thoughts about wanting a herd of these guys.
I ogled this two-toned fellow, but the lovely brown boy behind him let us pet him.
The judging ring. Could have watched for hours.
Gossip Girls?
The huacaya alpaca has a soft, puffy looking fleece.
The suri alpaca has a silky fleece that looks like dreadlocks.
While I was taking photos of these two lovelies...
The guy in the back kept peeking at me through the fence.
Who could resist this face?
A lot of ladies had their hair colored like this in the sixties.
In the midst of all this preparation, I had to make a business trip to Berkeley two weeks before the retreat. I hauled along a few of the looms and supplies to make some samples to show the class. And found that I didn't have time to do much. So I wisely decided that it would be more effective to show samples of pieces in all phases of construction.
I was able to work registration as usual. This is a treat for me, giving me a chance to greet lots of friends and meet new people. That night featured a lovely dinner, followed by a make-and-take lesson on making rolled paper beads. My friend Wendy, who taught the class, knew that I wouldn't be able to do everything, so she had me choose my paper in advance and made a bracelet for me. Isn't it pretty?
