Monday, November 22, 2010

Spinny Tour 2010: Part 3, The Faces of SOAR

The best part of any trip for me is the people I meet.  There are always so many wonderful people out there, some of whom pass through my life in a few minutes, some of whom have become life-long friends.  And many of those latter, I have met at fibre gatherings.  SOAR was no exception, so let me introduce you to some of the extraordinary people I met there.

Some of the first souls I met were SOAR veterans Pete and Carol Leonard, who travel each year from Great Britain.  There are quite a few SOAR regulars, all of whom went out of their way to make a newbie like me feel welcome, and soon, I felt quite at home.  So many new faces, and so few photos!

So, who did I get to know?  And who was I clever enough to take pictures of?

There were, of course, the fabulous mentors, some of whom you have already met...


Demetrio Bautista Lazo...



Deb Menz...


Margaret Stove...


and Stephenie Gaustad, here with Jacey Boggs.  (More about Jacey later.)

I spent much of the week with Kathryn Alexander, who posed glamourously for me...


... and who makes remarkable garments from yarn and does unnatural things to fibre with stunning results...


There were my classmates in the workshop, who were all wonderful to hang out with for 18 hours in a dim cavern, doing unnatural things to fibres ourselves...


There were a lot of spinners there, of all levels of experience, and with all sorts of different styles.  We hung out in clumps, under the elk...


and out in the sunshine, when there was some!

I met the lovely Linda Ligon, founder of Interweave press and fairy godmother to scholarship recipients such as myself...


I got to sit at breakfasts, lunches, and dinners beside the mentors, all of whom are fabulous people, discussing the weather and craft and survival with Deanna Dailey, cracking cold weather jokes with Bobbi Daniels (who hails from Alaska).  Sharing lunch with the camera-shy Sara Lamb, Deb Menz, Kathryn Alexander, and Gord Lendrum (yes, that Lendrum).  Eating dinner with Jacey Boggs, who shared with me her secret desire to take this interesting little fibre arts college program that they offer in Canada.  Oddly enough, I knew where there was a US off-campus class being offered by that Canadian college, which turned out to be half-an-hour from Jacey's home.  So, with a little contemplation and a great deal of family juggleing, Ms. Jacey was able to join our little Master Spinner class in Sedalia.  All because she sat beside the wrong woman at dinner one evening!

And I made a new BFF, my roommate Sarah Wilson...


The minute we met, literally in our hotel room doorway, we hit it off.  Sarah is, well, relatively extroverted and has a sneaky, though occasionally lowbrow, sense of humor.  She is also in love with color and texture and string.  And she lives somewhere where she would rather not live.  I cannot imagine why we get along, with so little in common...

And just so you know, Sarah is Miss June in the Spin-Off 2011 calendar.  I was in the presence of a calendar girl!

We sat together at meals, and hung out in the evenings, sharing stories of families and exchanging opinions on yarn and the world in general.  I'm so glad we got "stuck" together.  In fact, Interweave book editor Anne Merrow called us "the best SOAR roomie match since Abby and Denny", whose pairing lives on in infamy.
The notoriety of  Michelle and Sarah was confirmed on the last evening of SOAR, at the Farewell Spin-In.

'Twas the night before Halloween, and there was a costume theme in the air.  While many did not dress up. I had taken my felted Medusa costume, and Sarah had made some preparations, too.  When we showed up together for dinner, there were many questions as to our theme.  Since we didn't have one, and both being naturally inclined to make something up on the spot, we came up with...


Prince Charles and Camilla!  (Maybe you had to be there...it was HILARIOUS at the time!)

On top of that silliness, we plunged headlong, so to speak, into the Batts to Hats challenge at the spin-in.  The challenge was to spin and create a wearable hat in one hour.  We had to provide our own fibre, come up with a plan, and a strategy, then make the hat at the spin-in.  There was some highly un-technical spinning...


...along with some frenzied knitting.  Margaret Stove sat beside us and cheered us on, along with many other fans of speedy spinning.  One spinner even lent me her wheel when mine started snagging the fat, furry yarn I was making!  In the end, we had a hat that looked like a pumpkin, which was awarded Most Organic and Most Seasonal.  Our prize, a 2011 Spin-Off calendar, was given to our champion, whose name I'm pretty sure was Elizabeth, for coming to the rescue with her wheel.

There were others who were into the Halloween spirit of the evening, including Sharon Costello...

...in her felted spider web, and Jeannine Glaves...


as St. Distaff.

There was also a coven of witches across the room....

...and a lovely angel who travelled around the room passing out chocolate! 

It was more fun than should be legal.

Those of you who are spinny types may have noticed that there has been a ridiculous amount of name-dropping in this post.  That is the glory of SOAR.  You get to meet all sorts of people, from brand new spinners, to the high priestesses of our craft like Judith McKenzie and Maggie Casey.  They are all there, mixing an mingling with the common folk.  I also met Sheryl, and Toni, and Annette, and Carol, and so very many others, far too numerous to name one by one.  I have heard that SOAR has lost some of the intimacy it once had, because it has grown so popular, but I was very impressed by the sense of comraderie that existed with almost 300 people coming and going.  People brought their babies, sat next to strangers at meals, and chatted with each other when they met in the ladies room.  There were no barriers, and we were all one tribe for those 6 days and nights.

And then it was over.  The next morning was full of tearful goodbyes, and promises to keep in touch.  And I was off on the second leg of my great adventure...

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Spinny Tour 2010 Part Two: SOAR, The Retreat

So, I survived the first three days of SOAR.  On to the retreat sessions, three half-day workshops over Friday and Saturday, plus an open studio.  But first...


...just for fun, a quick workshop in yarn painting with Sara Lamb and Deb Menz.  Deb shared with us a few tips on mixing colors...


...and painting Merino skeins. 


Deb ran the steamers, serving as "short-order dye cook"...


...while Sara provided inspiration and support for those who needed color advice and cleverly evaded my camera.  The class was fast and furious, a true study in organized chaos!  And by the time the steam had cleared, I walked away with two lovely skeins...


Friday morning dawned bright and crisp...


...and I went off to my first actual retreat session.  Cochineal Dying with Demetrio Bautista Lazo from Oaxaca, Mexico.  Demetrio gave us a crash course in preparing and dying with cochineal...


...using lime juice and baking soda to change the pH of the dyebath for a wide range of colors...


I barely had time to catch my breath and grab lunch before it was time for retreat session number 2,  Spinning Fine Fibres on a Takli with Stephenie Gaustad, who was a gentle yet enthusiastic teacher who was gracious enough to even crawl under tables to help students out...


Stephenie had us spinning Merino and silk on takli spindles, which are usually used for cotton and other short fibres, which was a bit of a challenge.  She also gave us spoons to use as spindle bowls, which proved equally challenging.  Those suckers slipped and slid, and there was no way to hold them in your lap.  Until one clever girl unvented...


...the strap-on spindle bowl!  Tucking the spoon into my knee-brace was actually a stroke of genius, and from that point on, spinning longer fibres was a breeze!


Supper, wine, and sleep, then up and at 'em on Saturday morning for the Open Studio.  I'm not too sure what the organizers had intended this to be, but this particular session was really just a spin-in where you could mix and mingle with some of the instructors, though there was a rather interesting little panel-style discussion between Margaret Stove and Judith McKenzie on body mechanics.  It was a good way to regroup after the mad pace of the last couple of days, and it did give me an opportunity to chat with some of the greats in our wee community for a few minutes, but there was not a lot of new information.

This turned out to be a good thing, though, because after lunch, my last session was with Margaret Stove.   Margaret turned out to be a gentle, but thorough, instructor who put us through the paces of washing Merino locks...

 prepping them for spinning...


and spinning super-fine cobweb yarns in a very short 2 1/2 hours!  I like to make fine yarns, but, holy cow!!  Margaret shared some of her work with us, and told us the stories of the design process, as well...


...and just totally rocked my socks.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concluded the learning portion of my SOAR.  I am still processing and sorting information.  I can't say that I learned anything that I didn't already know, but I did take a fresh look at information and techniques that had gotten a little stale.  There was a lot of  "Oh, yeah, I never thought of it that way" going on in my mind, and I was clever enough to take copious notes, so I can make sense of what I did, eventually.  I hope.

You may have noticed that I have written very little about the people I met, the things I did outside of class, and the infamous social events that happen at SOAR...

You know what they say:  "What happens at SOAR..."

Monday, November 15, 2010

Spinny Tour 2010 Part One: SOAR, The Beginning

Slaughter the fatted calf!  The prodigal blogger has returned.

A month of organizing, packing, travelling, and living in hotel rooms has left me weary but full of tales to tell.  If I tell them all in one post, I will be typing for days, and you will be reading for equally as long, so I'm going to try and break things into smaller bites.  We shall have to wait and see if my attention span in long enough to share the complete meal with you.

Let us begin with the epic journey south and east to Spin-Off's Autumn Retreat, also known as SOAR.

 I woke up bright and eager to hit the road on the morning of October 22, had my coffee and a bath, packed up the car, and headed out.I got as far as the top of the parkade ramp before I realized there was something wrong with my car.  A quick zip into the visitor parking lot for inspection showed me what the problem was...a flat tire.  No problem, think I, I know how to change a tire.  Except that the lugs would. Not. Budge.  No way, no how.  Still no problem, because I belong to the CAA and I can call a tow truck.  A tow truck that took 3 hours to arrive.

Long story short, there was a wee bit of grit in the threads of the valve that had caused a slow leak, and thanks to the very sweet young man at the service station, I was finally on the road 5 hours later.

I could not help but wonder if this was a sign of things to come.

The next day was a flight from Edmonton to Milwaukee, with a lay-over in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  I passed through customs and security without incident, got on the plane, which took off on time.  So far, so good.  We land in MSP and start to taxi, and part-way to the terminal, stop dead in the middle of the runway.  And we sit.

After about 10 minutes, the pilot's voice comes from the speakers to inform us that we are sitting because President Obama is flying out of the airport and all traffic has to stop until after Air Force One takes off, which it did about 5 minutes later.  In the runway right beside us.  I waved.  No one waved back.

I grabbed a bite to eat, then got on my plane to Milwaukee, which is about a 45 minute flight.  Arrived in Milwaukee, encountered a very surly cab driver, checked into my hotel.  The next morning, I was up and pacing, waiting for my ride to the Lake Lawn resort and SOAR.

Lake Lawn Resort is a lovely place...


...right on the edge of Lake Delavan.  The resort is essentially a giant letter C, wrapping around the side of the lake.  I was placed in a lovely room at the very far end of the C, which made for a great deal of walking to get to meals and workshops, but was well worth it when we got to sit on our patio with a glass of wine and stare out at this...


I met my room mate (more about her and our many adventures to come in a future post), went to the welcome and dinner, then tried to sleep.  I was so keyed up, thrilled to be there and looking forward to my workshop, that sleep was hard to find.  Turns out that this would be the pattern for the week.

Monday morning.  Day one of a three-day workshop with Kathryn Alexander in working with energised singles.  The day started out with an exploration of twist in singles, and what happens when you add water.  The concepts of neutralizing twist, resting twist, and activating twist were all poked into.  Then we knitted.  Knitting with S twist and Z twist, knitting with different wrapping techniques, knitting with garter stitch and stockinette.  Simple concepts, really, but looked at from a rather different angle that made them very fresh and exciting for me.

Over the next two days, we spun singles, then knitted them in different ways.  We got all sorts of different cloth.  There were bumps and swirls and peaks and ribs in all sorts of unexpected places...


...and twisty yarns galore...


On Wednesday evening, after the last day of our workshop, we participated in an event called the Workshop Showcase, which is an opportunity for each workshop group to display their work from the previous 3 days.  There were angora bunny samples...


...and suri alpaca...


There were fine lace...


...and funky, chunky art yarns...


There were recycled fibres...


...and alternative materials used in fun ways...


There were blended fibres...


...and bast fibres being twisted into ropes...


There was also a table of naturally dyed fibres, colored with cochineal, chamomile and indigo that I neglected to get a photo of, along with the lovely thick yarns from another workshop. I was clearly distracted by those rowdy rope-makers, of whom I have far too many pictures...



So, with visions of twisty singles and active cloth dancing in my head, I wandered off to bed.  The next half of SOAR was about to begin, and I needed my rest...