A new plan for my life
Mood:  energetic
Fiber, Fiber, Fiber.  After all these years I still love it. Thursday's spindle day and Saturday's Spin In brought into focus for me what I want to do with my fiber life for the next couple of years and how to go about it.  For the last year many factors have come together.  My kids keep popping  out the grandkids.  I enjoy designing knitting and punch needle patterns.  I want to pursue my own designs in both of those areas more. My dye studio makes it even easier for me to dye, dye, dye--my favorite activity of all.  Wild Purls has given me an opportunity to teach locally more and now are going to have my handdyed knitted blanks on consignment there.  Ravelry provides me some market outside of Billings for my items. Then of course in my spare time I do that accounting stuff one half a day, I'm Conference Chair for the upcoming MAWS 2010 conference in Billings June 4-6, 2010.  After that I'm in line to become president of the Yellowstone Art Museum in July 2010.  Somehow something had to change because I was having so much fun that it was turning into too much work.  I haven't taken  many teaching gigs out of the area for the upcoming year due to the MAWS conference.   By the time I recover from that and get used to the YAM thing, two more years will have passed.  So for the next year or two, I'm staying around here more unless some particularly attractive teaching opportunity comes up.  That takes me to the next issue--how much stash do I need for myself and local students.  See my next installment for my solution.  Linda

Spin-In Saturday
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Spinning

These few days are spinning intensive.  Saturday Diane, others and I will be at Wild Purls at a spin-in from 1-4.  I plan to bring some Cross Patch Creations roving that I'm spinning into a multicolored medium weight yarn with texture.  Just mindless spinning is my plan.  Nothing is as peaceful as just spinning.

Today two people came over to learn spindle spinning.  One brought with her a Madagascar spindle that her mother brought home from when they were missionaries in Madagascar.  This student has lived in Madagascar and imports items from there for sale.  Fortunately she had told me about her spindle and I googled it before she came and found a reference to a Spinoff article in 2002.  Pulled out this Spinoff and was able to show her spinning from the region in Madagascar where she got the spindle. It is a supported spindle you spin on your thigh.  She sat on the floor and spun with it.  I sat on the floor for a while and spun a fine yarn on a Russian support spindle I had.  I couldn't have spent all day doing this and relaxing.  Sorry to have to stop.

Tomorrow morning I am going over to a friend's house who has a new wheel and is having trouble adjusting the tension etc.  She took my beginning class at Wild Purls and then ordered her wheel.  I LOVE to get people going on their new wheels. 

Today brought some sad news.  The owner of Joseph's Coat, Susanna Springer, died this week in her sleep.  It is all Susanna's fault that I am a spinner.  In law school, I used to go by her shop often when it was downtown Missoula and go in and stare at the wheels, fibers, and looms.  I couldn't wait to learn to spin.  But I was in law school and had 2 children under 4, so I didn't take time.  I kept saying as soon as I get a real job.  Sure enough within months of graduating and my law job, I had sheep and a wheel.  The rest is history.  It is hard to imagine my life without spinning and other fiber arts.  So thanks Susanna and many knitters, spinners, and weavers in Montana will miss you.  Linda

Journaling--a way if life
Mood:  lucky
Topic: Designing

I so much enjoy designing knitting, crochet, and punch needle patterns.  Getting them all proofread, completed several times, photographed and printed I enjoy a lot less.  But I do like the designing and the early stages of the creative process and journaling has become part of that for me.

About 8 years ago when I had a stressful time in my life I started journaling.  The first journal lasted several years because I would go months with out entries.  About 2 years ago I started getting really regular and including all my thoughts in the same one, then I started adding design thoughts and even sketches occassionally.  Now I will sometime drag my journal out at meetings.  A pretty fat journal only lasts me 4 months now.  I have found journaling an important part of my life for some reason.  If you have ever read the Artists Way, they recommend "morning papers" for 1/2 hour each morning.  I rarely stick with anything so structured.  But the few times I do journal when I'm fresh I am more creative.  I miss journaling when I don't do it for more than 2 days although I often get busy.  I rarely skip a whole week and going that long stresses me out.  On a stressful day, taking a few minutes to journal is very soothing.

Today I'm starting a new journal.  Since I carry my journal in my purse now I wanted to get something smaller and lighter so I picked up a Moleskine.  These journals have been used by "European artists and thinkers for 2 centures, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernes Heminway to Bruce Chatwin".  The jury is out to see if my thoughts are more profound now that I am using such a lofty journal.  They do have the advantage of being light and this style has graph paper which I really like for my purse.   On to more designing/day dreaming.  Linda

Just can't help pushing spinning
Mood:  happy
Topic: Spinning

Since my life has swirled way too rapidly in the last 6 months, I resolved to not teach all summer and to skip a usual gig in September.  But I had to make an exception. This week at a groundbreaking event at the Yellowstone Art Museum a woman said a friend of hers was coming to town and she knew I taught spinning and was there a chance they could take a class from me next week.  Guess what I said--of course do you think I can turn down turning on 2 new spinners. 

 And then I had made a commitment some time ago to a natural dye day with a guild member.  And then I offered to dye some curtains for my step-mom's patio.  That turned out well, but it reminded me why I'm not a production dyer.  The curtains weighed 6 pounds altogether so I dyed them 1 at a time.  It about killed me to dye 5 exactly the same dyepots.

I'm also doing book reviews for my local yarn store for fun.  So much for no new commitments.

Linda 

Weaving Inspiration Kris Abshire
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Weaving

I'm back exhausted, stimulated etc. from Association of Northwest Weavers Guild (ANWG) 2009 in Spokane at Gonzaga University.  My first (but not only by a long ways) inspiration came from my instructor Kris Abshire. http://www.krisabshire.com/ Kris is an excellent dyer, weaver, surface design person and showed us lots of her beautifully colored work.  I had seen a big piece with caribou in Tacoma in 2005. I still remembered it vividly and when I could take a 2 day dyeing class from her I signed up. I just wished I could have taken the Surface Design class she taught in the post conference workshop. An Alaskan Kris finds most of her inspiration in the natural world around her. Kris’s weavings combine warp painting with pictorial surface design elements. Fortunately for me Kris uses the same Sabrasett dyes I do.  I have 60+ colors currently mixed and look forward adding Kris’s formulas to my mix. She uses a lot more Navy in her mixes than I do, so it will extend my color palette. Like Nancy Roberts of Machine Knitting to Dye For fame, she uses a 2 % solution rather than the 1% solution which is my norm.  I’m still contemplating that.  I occasionally use 2 or 4 % solutions, but 1 % is my norm. Much of Kris’s work is with a 100 percent silk whereas I normally use a wool or wool/silk blend or other protein fiber blend.  Since silk is harder to permeate than wool, this is a factor also. My classmates and I dyed 2 warps and 2 wefts. The first was the more painterly approach using unthickened dyes.  The second used thickener to get more precise results on part of the piece. Our class and yarns are shown here as well some closer samples of our yarns. 

Each warp chain is surrounded by its corresponding weft.  I asked Kris is she has a “default weft”.  She said usually navy or black. She suggested being careful using one of the colors from the warp painting in your weft because those sections where the exact same color is both warp and weft will jump out.  For example if you want to use red in both some of your warp painting and weft, then make sure your weft is a different color red. She also says that picking weft is more about value and that using a darker weft will make the warp dominate and pop off more.  Also a 3/1 twill will be less blendy than plain weave.  She often uses a straight draw twill for her warp and then decides from there. More about Kris’s ideas later.  She says she will be updating her website with lots of hands-on info.  So keep checking back to Kris's website.  

 

 

 

 

Last day as ANWG membership chair
Mood:  happy
Topic: Chat
For the last 4 years, I have enjoyed serving as membership chair for ANWG.  This organization of weaving and spinning guilds in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan has almost 100 guilds.  I learned a lot as membership chair and enjoyed communicating with all the guilds and learning about them.  I'm also happy to turn over my duties to Daryl Reis from Great Falls.  I'll have to spend some time with Daryl turning everything over after the conference.  This last year as I have become increasing busy with Yellowstone Art Museum and serving as conference chair for MAWS 2010 in Billings, I feel I have slighted ANWG.  So I'm very happy to have served and very happy to take a break from the ANWG board.  Linda

Book Review--Knit one below
Mood:  rushed
Topic: Knitting

I LOVE fiber books.  For years I bought many of the knitting magazines and books on the market as well as spinning and weaving.  Those were the days when only a few knitting books were published each year and we couldn't wait for the books and magazines to come out as they were are only source of technique heavy information.  Things have changed and even I found a limit to how many knitting books I could buy.  But one I bought this year and can't wait to delve into thoroughly is knit one below by Elise Duvekot published in 2008 by XRX books.  I have had it for a couple of months falling in love with as soon as I saw it at my local yarn store Wild Purls and walking out with it immediately. 

Elise Duvekot explored k1b (knit one below) for 10 years for this book.  She divides her time between Canada and The Netherlands.  This knitting method is ideal for space dyed and self-striping yarn--two of my favorite dyeing techniques.  When you knit this stitch in a single yarn , it breaks up pooling and produces a subdued fabric.  When used with two colors, you can create column.  The feel of the knitting has a distinct hand-not tight or stiff.  It is also doesn't curl much. 

Like slip stitch, this pattern changes the ratio of the stitches to rows.  Elise says that depending upon the yarn the ratio is often close to 1 stitch per 3 rows which is quite different from to 2 to 3 or 5 to 7 ratio of stockinette stitch.  Because the stitch creates a wider stitch gauge than stockinette, you need a very loose cast on and has a special method for this.  For example instead of a 60 stitch sock, you would have a 40 stitch sock.  If all goes well, I'll cast on the hat this evening.  If not I'll take the directions along on my trip to ANWG.  Linda

Patterns dancing in my head
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Knitting

I have had a fiber immersion the last few weeks.  I have taught many classes including dyeing self-striping yarn  in Corvallis and spinning in Billings and Alberta.  On top of that I made some non-fiber trips.  My studio and desk are a disaster.  This is the first weekend I have stayed home and I leave again in 2 days.  Yet like all my traveling fiber adventures I've come back with so many ideas I'm just dancing from one design to the other.  I had dyed this self striping yarn in a very simple long skein method using analogous color scheme--also a safe bet.  I love to play with easy stitch patterns with self-striping and space dyed yarns to accent or obscure color changes.  I love this two row pattern and decided to include this scarf pattern and another one new one in a pattern called two-fer.  Both patterns are easy and will have directions for several weight yarns from fingering to worsted.  This one is almost done and is definitely mindless.  It will block flat.  But now is a bit bumpy as it is a rib relative.--Linda

CONTEST WINNER!!!!!!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Knitting

HURRAY!  We have a winner for the Pattern Contest.  I think Carol has hit on the botheration that most of us have faced!   Thanks Carol!

Hi,

I'd be delighted to enter your contest for a free pattern.

I have UFOs beyond number. It isn't that I don't *want* to finish things. I do. It's just that, well, things happen.  I'll be knitting a sweater for the holiday season, a gift, of course, and someone will have a baby.  The gift sweater gets put away, just "for now", while a baby blanket is crocheted. Then, having forgotten about the sweater, since out of sight is out of mind, I'll start something else, and oops! there's a birthday next week.  Best do something quick. So that project gets put aside, "for now". Or I'll get completely frustrated with a complicated pattern, and put it away "till I can look at it with fresh eyes", and concentrate for a week on dishcloths, which don't need eyes to do.

Once in a while, I'll go to my UFO pile, and pull something out, only to find that it will no longer fit the intended recipient. I'll sigh and put it back, only to start something else.  Occasionally, I pull something out and actually finish it, but I have to be very stern with myself - along the lines of "No new yarns for you, my girl, till you get this done!"  Or I'll start to finish it, and -you guessed it- someone has a baby.

Carol C

 ..........Stay tuned in for the next contest

 

Dyeing class April 25-26 Corvallis
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Chemical Dyeing

Missoula Weavers and Spinners Guild has me scheduled for Corvallis April 25-26. I think there are still a couple of openings. Good news about that is that I’ll spend the next week immersed in the dyepot (my favorite thing). Here is class description if you know anyone interested. It is for knitters, crocheters, weavers. They received a grant from the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners http://www.mawsonline.org/link text so it is pretty reasonably priced. If you know someone interested, please email me at Lindas5252@yahoo.com

Dyeing Self-Striping yarns and other variegated yarns. Dye several different self-striping yarns, matching semisolids, and optional space dyed yarn. Each colorway makes a hat, pair or socks, or scarf. Dye mock fair isle and explore uses for these yarns and how to accent their unique characteristics. Learn innovative methods to plan the length of color repeats for knitting, weaving, or crocheting using the teacher’s simple formulas. Design colorful yarns using common approaches including: split complimentary, triad, and analogous and pleasing proportions. This 2-day class includes 5 self striping methods including the peg board method, the big ball method, the big skein method, semi solids plus optional knitting machine blanks. Students will also learn about painted warps if desired and space dyed yarn.

Linda