Felting

Tried to put pictures on the blog but was NOT SUCCESSFUL. I had a creative weekend. We had a find raiser for our Community Garden on the island and I made a felted necklace for auction as well as a cake for the cake auction. The cake got $55 and the necklace $78. Heather

4 pictures for you
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This album has 4 photos and will be available on SkyDrive until 25/09/2011.

Nature Dying Classes this summer

Natural Dye Days


Learn to dye with natural dyes. Two days are planned where you can dye yellow, red, and blue using ancient dyes. You will need 16 one ounce skeins of natural white or natural coloured wool or silk for the first day, and 8 one ounce skeins of natural white or natural coloured wool or silk or cotton for the blue day. We will be experimenting with shades, tones, shifting ph, and over dyeing to achieve a wide spectrum of colours. Dyes, pots, and heating sources will be provided. Please bring a lunch. Tea and coffee will be provided. Don’t forget to wear old clothes and bring gloves to protect your hands in the dyepots. Dress for the weather.

Dates: August 23 and 24th, 2011

Times: 10 am to ????

Cost: $84.00 which includes HST

For more information contact: Elaine Duncan, 250-248-1270, or email: elaine@elaineduncan.com

Yarn logic

Our Annual Pot Luck

Our Annual Pot Luck is this Wednesday night at 6 pm at our President home at Fiddick's Farm B&B which is on 1431 Ivor Road. Anne phone number if you get lost is 250-722-2507. Bring show and tell, food and Did we decide on a silent auction or was that in September?

May meeting photos

Margo's colourful double weave.

Here's a few of the show and tell things people brought to the May meeting. Very inspiring! and very colourful!  Sorry there weren't more photos.

Heather's sweater with matching buttons.

Karen's jaw-dropping handspun
shawl

Detail from Karens shawl

Detail from Karen's shawl

 

A post from Amy at Spinning Daily

I am a bit embarrassed to post this but what the heck.  Here's an editorial by Amy King, editor of Spin-Off, (you know...the one who wants spinners to unite and take over the world) writing about an adventure I shared with her and 19 other incredible spinners.   Oh, and you can subscribe to Spinning Daily.
Can you imagine a more perfect heaven? 

Trees in the misty haze of Lake Cresent on the Olympic loop highway on the way to Forks, Washington.
Debi Dodge, Stephanie Flynn Sokolov, Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa, Nicole Drane, and Karen Poremski amidst the red cedar trees on the Cape Flattery Trail overlooking Neah Bay.
The view of Gig Harbor with my wheel, a bit of pygora fiber combined with good company and a cup of coffee to make a perfect memory.

A couple of weeks ago I packed up my spinning wheel and checked it as luggage on a flight to Seattle, Washington, then borrowed a car and drove along the Olympic Peninsula through mist and rain to Forks, Washington—stopping a couple of times to revel in the majestic views and palpable humidity. (Can you tell I'm from an arid climate?)

Once in Forks, I settled into a comfortable bed and breakfast, unpacked my wheel, and got ready for a weekend of spinning immersion. Judith MacKenzie was teaching Tribal Textile Treasures at the community center in Forks, and I was one of the fortunate nineteen spinners who signed up for the retreat.

We studied the traditional textiles of the Northwest coast people—the Quileute, the Makah, and the Salish—and spun a host of different fibers and learned to work with the inner bark of the red cedar tree (there will be more about this in the summer issue of our eMag, SpinKnit—so stay tuned!). There were layers upon layers of spinning interest in this class because not only was the subject matter endlessly fascinating, but so were the other students in the class. Every interaction was punctuated with a tidbit of information that enhanced the whole weekend, from engaging breakfast conversations about books to read to sharing fiber in class to long conversations about how we got started spinning. As we were packing up to leave, I found that Marcelle Anderson, one of my classmates, had brought fiber from her Pygora goats to sell. It was gorgeous, so I bought some and tucked it in my luggage.

Before returning to Colorado, I stayed a night with my Aunt Susan and Uncle Andy in Gig Harbor and fulfilled a dream I've had ever since I first visited them—that of spinning while looking over the harbor. It was too rainy to spin on the back porch, but I was able to spin and watch the sun come up over the harbor in the dining room of their cozy hillside house. The pygora was just the fiber to spin, too. It was lustrous and smooth and beautifully prepared. It is harder to imagine a more perfect place to sit and spin while enjoying a beautiful morning in good company—wonderful memories are spun into that yarn.

Once home with a bobbin full of lovely pygora yarn, I started searching for a knitting pattern so that I could wear those memories. I had just received a copy of the Spin-Off 2003 CD Collection, so I popped it in the computer to see if there was anything in there that piqued my interest and found a lovely article by Carol Rhoades about spinning colored mohair and the beautiful lace shawl she made, embellished with beads…and that has started another adventure—maybe a few months (or more) down the road I'll have something to report. Spinning is like that.

Happy spinning,