Friday June 22, 2012
I woke up, friday morning at 4 am, from a nightmare that I'd lost my children in a Costco. What a terrible way to start off a day that should be fun and exciting! I could tell my Mother Guilt at leaving the Family for 9 days was starting to get to me... I'd been wondering all month if I should drop the two extra courses I'd signed up for, but it was far to late for that. I woke up, had a some coffee, and got the kids ready for thier day and dropped the oldest off at school. Then it was my turn to go to school. Although it took me a heck of a lot longer to get to school then it took me to take the kids!
Along the way I stoped in at The Fat Ewe Bed and Breakfast to pick up some wool. Oh my goodness. This place is my dream retirement! There's this gorgeous home, filled with antiques and 4 rooms for the guests to use. Besides the gorgeous accomodations there is a big barn and a bunch of small coops for chickens and ducks and geese of all sorts, and pigs and goats and SHEEEEEEEP! Gosh, the sheep are certainly the cutest critters.
Anyway, I figured I'd grab a couple of the fleeces, and share with the master spinners. I took off with two Karakul, a goodly handful of short shetland, and a HUGE bag (25lbs worth?) of East Friesian. My trunk was FULL of unprocessed wool. I spent some time talking to Eileen (who served the most interesting drink, Rhubarb juice. It's very good, try it if you have the chance!) and then went on merry way.
And then promptly got lost. I ended up zigzagging my way to the #2 highway, on back roads and secondary highways. I did end up finding my way, mind you. Not before I got very worried I'd miss meeting the person I'd promised to meet, so we could get groceries. I messaged her, telling her that's I'd be late, and ended up in Olds with plenty of time to spare anyway! Getting lost didn't take as long I'd thought it would.
Then I went shopping. At the Fibre Week Market. Blew over 200$ in less then 30 minutes, I'm sure. A new spindle, a whole bunch of pottery (By Heather), and a weaving book for my Mom.
It was a long day, but a good one!
Saturday June 23, 2012
First day of class! I took Getting Even with Michelle Boyd. This was an extra course I opted to take, as who doesn't want to be able to make amazingly even yarn? The kind that makes people go: 'You spun that?! It looks like a machine made it!' Then you can blow them away with your amazing skilllz. Don't get me wrong, funky cool, textured yarns are also amazing. I love creating things that just beg to be touched, stared at and loved. But that perfect singles, incredibly even ply.... Perfection at it's best. I know to some, that seems an insult, but to me it means I've become master of the fibre, and can dictate what I want a fibre to become (to a point, of course. You aren't going to get a lace weight yarn out of Scottish Blackface, but you can make it perfectly into a suitable warp for rugs.) I went from pretty bumpy in the morning, to really quite amazingly even by the end of the day. And all with just a few nifty little tricks.
Woolen spun before class and after class:
Worsted spun before class and after class:
Saturday night was the Kick off Social. The Keynote Speaker was Karen Workman who presented the topic "How I sold my Landskin for 2000$" A landskin is a gorgeous piece of fabric stitched, and layered and dyed and felted. I took from this two things: 1- Never undervalue your work. And 2- If you make something beautiful, it will be priceless to someone.
Sunday June 24, 2012
Sunday I had chosen a knitting class. I'm an alright knitter, but there are a few things I'd like to improve upon, like wonky edges, diferent cast ons, and such. Those tiny details that give that finese to a garment. The knitting class was called Beginnings, Endings, Edges and Joins, with Jani Meyers. We covered a few cast on's that I was unfamiliar with, including the provisional and a circle cast on. Those were the most intriguing and kind of fiddly. But I feel like I could confidently do them again, should the need arise. One really cool edge/cast off is something I'm not sure if there is a name for. It involves casting on at the edge and a series of k and k2tog's that give you a really nice perpendicular garter stitch. I'm sure you could alter the garter stitch to be any stitch, but it's really quite nice, all things considered. One other thing I thought was really really cool, that we squeeeeeezed in at the very end was the i-cord cast on. There are sooo many uses for it! I've got to try it again and again and again, just to be sure I'm getting it right. It would look very lovely on a circular vest, or a toque, or sleeves, or hems.... Anything with an edge! Sadly, we didn't get to the Joins part. I think it was because the class was slightly larger then it should have been. Though truth be told, had those same 6-8 people with all the questions and difficulties (and yes, I was one of them! some of those things were tricky to get off the start!) been in a smaller class, we'd have only gotten so much covered anyway. It was still a valuable lesson in knitting.
Sunday night was the Spin in, and unfortunately, I'm not really sure what it was, but something kept me from it...
Okay, I'm starting to realize this is going to take a lot of words to get through the whole 9 days away. So I'm going to do it in parts. And I think this is the only part with decent pictures... Perhaps I will take a few shots of the samples we did in the Level 2 class before I start on the next post.
Hopefully it won't take to long to get the next post up, but we've gone camping, and theres no service up there. Maybe I'll be able to make a draft in my "free time"(like one gets much more then a minute of free time at a time camping with small children) and post when we get back.
~Kara
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