As the Whorl Spins

January Blues

2012-01-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

No, this is not a post about post-festive-season depression. It's a post about being in a colour rut. (Though a rut is a depression of a sort...)

You see, I've been doing a studio tidy this past week. I really haven't touched things since getting home from the Tucson/Sedalia trip, aside from shoving piles back and forth to make a tiny space to work in. I hadn't even unpacked some of the things I had purchased on that trip! But now that things have slowed down, I was beginning to find the climbing over boxes and shoving of piles annoying, so it was time to tidy.

The job is not quite done--there are still all the circular needles to sort and put away, and a pile of UFOs to frog and store, and one more bin of odd balls that have no home--but the studio is a viable work space again. But now, as I sit in my comfy spinning chair, I look around and can't help but notice an alarming trend.

I've got the blues.

The blues are waiting to be spun...

...in a variety of painted tops and rovings.

The blues are spun and awaiting knitting...

...in the form of 780 yards of Merino/yak/silk 3-ply, about 1600 ypp/20 wpi.

The blues are freshly dyed...

...in the form of the Paco-vicuna I posted last week, dyed rather spontaneously with a random (and, therefore, unrepeatable-d'oh!) mix of Ciba cobalt and Telana turquoise dyes.

More blues await knitting...

...in the form of handpainted yarns lined up for commission pieces.

The blues are even lurking in other yarns...

...like this 110 yards of bulky corespun made from a batt named "Calistoga" blended by Sayra at Atomic Blue. Sure, it's mostly greens, but that blue is there. Mocking me.

The blues are even evident in the UFO pile...

So, am I in a rut? Or am I, like Picasso, just going through a Blue Period?

In any event, it's January, and I have the blues. Lots and lots of blues!

Optimism. Or Not.

2012-01-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here this morning feeling all mellow and relaxed and really not caring that I have Important Real Life Things to do. Things like going to the store to buy soy sauce and baking powder. Things like getting my glasses repaired. Things like folding those two loads of towels on the couch.

Instead, I'm sitting here, knitting away on a sweater for Steve and pondering. Pondering what to do with this...

...340 yards of Paco-Vicuna (28 g), about an 18s/52 wpi. It is going to be something lacy, of course. Possibly an Emily Shawl (Rav link). But the real question is to dye or not to dye. The natural colour is a lovely, rich, warm beige that I hate to cover up, but beige and I decided to part ways a few years back when my hair turned white. Blue would be better, but the natural is so pretty. So I knit and stare and ponder.

And very now and then I get up and check on this...

...Big Pile o' Mo. Because checking it every five minutes will make it dry faster. I spent part of yesterday washing marvellous kid mohair locks in natural colours with the vision of a fabulous monochromatic tail-spun yarn that will become the most glorious scarf in the history of the Universe. But mohair dries in January at about the same rate molasses flows in January. So I check and I ponder the marvellous yarn yet to come.

All this knitting and checking and pondering has led my mind down a few stray paths, too. Which brings me to the topic of today's sermon. Optimism, or the lack thereof.

I am an optimistic person. Not like Pollyana optimistic, where everything is wonderful all the time. I do have a little to much skepticism for that, and 50 years of living in the Real World had taught me a lesson or two on tempering optimism with caution. But I'm essentially a glass-half-full kind of person. (See the above hopeful delusion that mohair will dry quickly in January.)

This does not mean that I don't notice the bad things. Or that I don't complain. I do both. Lots. But I get over it, or find a way to turn it around. I make a joke and move on and embrace the joy in life.

But lately, it has struck me that I am in a minority. (I may not actually be, but it just seems that everybody is so full of gloom and doom.) My Facebook and Twitter is full of complaint and misery. Some seem to delight in reposting news stories of death and mayhem and tragedy of operatic proportions. Others are sharing the suffering of their New Years resolution diets or the dark days of January (for which I actually do feel some sympathy). A few are trying to pick political fights-Albertan and American (Neither contest is looking like it's going to be pretty, even to us optimists). There are even a couple who have made disparaging comments on the positive posts of others. (It may be getting close to time for a Friend Purge...)

Even the Real World seems to be in a bad mood. On two separate occasions this past week, strangers in check-out lines started conversations with me. Normally, this would delight me, but these conversations were just openings for them to vent their spleens to a stranger. (And, as a side note, to the man who believes that photoradar is just a cash grab by the Municipality because they nailed you 3 times on the same stretch of road: STOP SPEEDING and the Municipality will stop grabbing your cash. Just sayin'.) Cashiers and servers grumble about the winter weather, which, in my opinion, has been exceptionally mild this year. Well, okay, they reply, then say "but just wait, we're gonna get nailed."

You know, when you dwell on the negative, pretty soon it's all you see. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people out there who are missing some pretty awesome adventures because all they can see are the roadblocks. There is a silver lining to every cloud, but there seem to be a lot of people noticing the cloud to every silver lining these days.

So is it just the January Blues? Or is everybody depressed because the Mayans are going to end the world this year. (Or because the Family Radio Network failed to do so last year?) Or is this because there is too much bisphenol-A in our drinking water? Or do this many people just see the glass as half empty?

Well, you know what the optimist in me says to that?

"Glass half-full. Glass half-empty. Who cares? We've still got wine either way!"

Hibernation

2012-01-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

There has been a whole lot of this going on around here lately...

Yes, we are in the deep, dark days of winter. The holidays are over. The feasting is finished. Twinkling decorations are stowed for another 11 months. It's January, and nothing is going on.

Oh, stuff is happening. Just not that hectic running about that seems to go on during the rest of the year. No travel. No teaching. Not even a lot of emails rolling into the inbox. In fact, it was beginning to feel downright dull around here. Just a whole bunch of spinning and knitting and reading, with the occasional tasty meal thrown in for variety. Fighting a lingering sniffle. Really, nothing much to speak of. I was beginning to get bored.

So, this morning, I decided to start getting things organised for the coming year. I knew I had a few upcoming workshops that would need supplies, so I started sifting through contracts and emails. I came up with 13 different classes, in 7 different venues in the next 6 months. Four, count 'em, four Master Spinner classes alone! And this doesn't count August-November, where I have at least a class a month booked already.

The list-making, the budgeting, the travel-arranging has begun. Along with my work on curriculum review, article writing, and my annual foray into set design. Suddenly, time spent spinning seems very precious, and reading is a luxury. The last couple of weeks have not been a boring waste of time, but a precious island of calm before the next wave of chaos. Now those empty squares on the calendar are a respite, a couple of days to rest and recharge. Because I have been reminded that when I flip the calendar page over to February, there are no empty squares. Until mid-August.

So, like a bear, I will continue to stay curled up in my little den, living off the fat stores built up by the excess of the last few weeks, resting and recharging. And when the spring comes (apparently on February 15th!), I will be ready to charge out and face the world.

But for now, I'm gonna curl up and take a nap.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

I'm ready for Christmas. Or, at least, the stuff is all done.

In the last two weeks, my quiet little Christmas has exploded into a full-bown gathering of the clan, complete with big family dinners and convoluted travel arrangements from all points of the compass. I have baked and knitted and shopped and wrapped and DONE ALL THE THINGS. All that remains is to await the arrivals of our travellers.

The world around me is shutting down for the holidays. The usual morning traffic jam outside my living room window is absent. There are short lines in all of the local stores. My inbox is devoid of actual emails.

So, now, I am going to shut down for a few days, too. I am going to eat rich food, and drink good wine, and cuddle up with the ones I love most...

...while thinking of good friends, old and new, and, of course, knit and spin.

So, whoever you are and however you celebrate, I hope that you find time to do the things that bring you joy during this quiet time when the world actually slows down for a few days. I wish you peace and joy on these dark winter days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(PS: For those of you who follow my Twitter feed along the side bar, I apologise in advance for any off-colour or obtuse tweets. These things happen when Boyds gather.)

'Tis the Season

2011-12-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's that time of year again. The commercials have been running since mid-October. Retailers are promising us the best prices of the year THIS WEEK ONLY for weeks on end. And the bloggers are choosing up sides and pronouncing their pro-Christmas/anti-Christmas stance to the world.

You've probably seen something-the interwebz is full of the Spirit of the Season. Christmas is too commercial. How to have a "green" Christmas. Don't say "Merry Christmas" because it's insensitive to those with non-Christian belief systems. If you don't say "Merry Christmas" you are part of the "War on Christmas". I have been reading all week about these things, and about each blogger's individual family crises that arise at this time of year for weeks now.

And I will admit, the stress of the Season was beginning to build in me, too. I was sulking about the fact that my family is scattered and we cannot spend significant dates together anymore. I was fretting perfect gifts and mailing dates. I was stewing over whether or not to decorate the dining room, for crying out loud. Hell, I was even worrying about the lack of snow in the region! I mean, how could I feel festive without snow?

Then the barrage began. I started getting about 25 emails a day from retailers, some of whom I don't even shop with, offering me discounts, free shipping, or a gift card for me if I spend X dollars on gifts. My Facebook and Twitter are littered with messages to "Keep Christ in Christmas", include non-Christians in my holiday wishes, and Shop Local (which is grammatically incorrect--they should be exhorting me to shop locally). I receive a dozen messages a day to boycott the same retailers who are emailing me to tell me to shop with them. My blogroll is littered with stories of Christmas catastrophes and angst.

So I turn on the TV to escape the negativity. Along with airings of "A Christmas Story", I find ads for seasonal air fresheners and special edition "holiday" oral care products. I find myself confronted with news stories of Christmas sales being up, which is good news for the economy. Or down, which is bad for the economy. I find ads telling me to give $2000 diamonds and big-screen TVs and cars for Christmas because those are the perfect gifts (financing available OAC).  I find celebrity chefs informing me that if I haven't been raising my own turkey since April, I have ruined Christmas dinner. Or vegans telling me that if I eat turkey, I am a heathen and a monster. And doctors telling me that eating any holiday-related foods will make me fat.

And don't get me started on the radio. If I have to hear Justin Bieber singing that he wants to get his shorty under the mistletoe one more time, I may just go screaming fa-la-la-la-la all the way to the nearest mental health institution.

So I walk away from the media. I meet friends for coffee. Friends who tell me tales of family conflict over who will be hosting Christmas Eve and who gets Christmas dinner, or who are trying to figure out how they can afford to get both of their kids X-Boxes for their rooms. I go to the Post Office to mail a non-Christmas-gift package and stand in line for half-an-hour surrounded by people who are angry because they have to stand in line for half-an-hour to mail their gifts. I go to my local coffee dispensary for a latte and have to run a gauntlet of gifts and frantic shoppers fighting over the last mug with a reindeer on it.

And this was only the first week of December. I just wanted to crawl into a hole until January by last weekend. I really did.

Now, don't get me wrong. I really love the Festive Season. I like the warmth and coziness of my home on long, dark winter days. I love the reasons to see friends that I never seem to find time to visit the rest of the year. I have an excuse to indulge in day-long knitting sessions, and to shop for things I would never otherwise even look at. I love the lights, the music, the food, the smell of balsam and cedar. But it's hard to remember these little joys when you are being bombarded with what you are doing wrong. After all, what is a candle-lit evening spend sipping mulled wine compared to the "War on Christmas"? Clearly, there are much bigger things than my simple pleasures.

In spite of my misgivings, I bravely soldiered on. We ventured out and acquired a Christmas tree (the Boyd household is still a "real" tree establishment). I turned off the radio and TV and played Christmas carols instead.  I planned baking, and, of course, I knit gifts. My heart wasn't really in it, though. I felt like I was just going through the motions. And that made me really sad.

Then things started to happen.  With a rather deus ex machina-like development, my little quiet Christmas at home became a big family gathering. It snowed. I stumbled upon a favorite Christmas album on iTunes. I finished the Christmas knitting. I began the Christmas baking. I remembered the joy of these early winter celebrations.

I think too many of us have bought the Madison Avenue Christmas--the one where the most expensive gift buys us the most love. The one where we have to start decorating in October, and start shopping the day after. The one where everyone behaves perfectly and there is peace and love and joy. And shopping. Or we have been burned out by the things that go wrong at Christmas. The same things that go wrong at Easter and Mothers Day and on any given Tuesday, really. But when there is a family spat or a burnt meal at Christmas, it is apocalyptic. We lose perspective. Because we have been indoctrinated that this is the Biggest Day of the Year, and if you get this day wrong, you are the ultimate failure.

"The Holidays" have become synonymous with stress. Because we have let them. But we can take our joy back. We can delete those emails about shopping. We can turn off the advertising. And the Justin Bieber.

We can celebrate on our own terms, whether that means a Solstice bonfire, or lighting a Menorah, or hosting a Norman Rockwell-esque Christmas for 40. Or we can not celebrate at all. We can cozy up in our homes with our loved ones, or we can travel to Grandma's house, or to Cancun. We can give big screen TVs, or hand-knit mittens, or no gifts at all. We can give to the food bank, or we can wait and donate food in June when stocks are low again. We can eat turkey, or Tofurkey, or roast beef. We can eat cookies or not eat cookies. We can like fruitcake. We can laugh and cry and fight and hug.

Because when you embrace life on your own terms, taking the good with the bad, you will find joy where ever you are. And whatever the date.

So, whatever celebration you observe at this turn of the seasons, ignore the advertisers, the spammers, the nay-sayers, and the Grinches and celebrate with all you've got! Or not. It's up to you.

(Personally, I'm gonna celebrate.)

Sedalia. At Last.

2011-11-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

I know. It's about time I got back at the blogging. I have a long list of excuses for the most recent radio silence, most of them pretty weak. But I'm back now.

Back from spending 4 out of the last 6 weeks on the road, sleeping in strange beds, slogging through airports, snuggling up to total strangers on airplanes. And teaching 106 people to spin. Dude, ONE-HUNDRED-AND-SIX people! I've been busy.

You've read about SOAR. You've read about Tucson. You haven't had the Sedalia report. Yet.

This is the second year I have taught a Level 1 class in Sedalia, MO, and it felt rather like coming home. The accommodations in the Hotel Bothwell were fabulous, the weather (except for one very blusterous evening) was fine, and the students (as always) were amazing! Many of the students I taught last year were back for their Level 2 class, as well, so it was rather like a homecoming for me.

The first day of classes fell on Halloween, and there were a few shenanigans...

...including a pair of rather sassy sheep from the Level 2 class. (Sheep-nanigans?) I even made a sad attempt at cobbling up a last-minute costume...

...Ooooh, scary!

I decided three days before I left Tucson to knit a sheepy costume and whipped up the headband, and a tail in my "free time". There were others who got into the spirit, as well...

...and we all went out to dinner together.

We sorted fleeces, we washed, fleeces, we carded, we spun woollen and worsted yarns, and we dyed...

...It never ceases to amaze me the colours that we get. It's like magic every time!

The week absolutely flew by. And then it was over. But I wasn't ready to leave.

I had been invited by some of my students from last year to visit Chillicothe, MO, so I packed up my gear and hopped into the waiting chariot and was whisked away to that very charming community...

... for some well-deserved R and R. My hostess, Zelma, took excellent care of me. And kept me hopping!

We visited a covered bridge that dates back to the Civil War, one of the few remaining in Missouri...

I learned about osage (aka "hedge") trees...

...and that the dye derived from them, osage orange, was used to dye the uniforms of US WW1 troops at the suggestion of local-boy-made-good General John J. Pershing...

I visited longhorn cattle...

...and llamas...

I also attended a local church service, and a concert featuring country music legend Gene Watson. I was even the guest of honour at a brunch hosted at Nico'Z for the local Fiberistas...

Yet, as busy as the weekend was, I managed to rest and recuperate from two solid weeks of teaching. It was a perfect little getaway. Then back onto a plane and home.

Where a gargantuan mountain of laundry and an empty pantry were waiting, along with the final paperwork for Fibre Week 2012, another writing assignment, and a pile of requests for proposals. And as I have been chipping away at those things, a whole pack of exciting new challenges and opportunities have been coming up.

And, of course, there is much spinning to be done!

Postcards from the Road: Tucson

2011-10-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Tucson!

Well, actually, greetings from the Albuquerque airport. I've (reluctantly) left Tucson behind to travel onward to Sedalia, MO. I say (reluctantly) because Tucson was FABULOUS!

My visit began with a warm airport welcome from my hostesses for the week Jill and Lura and only got better and better. Except for one day, but we'll get to that.

Little did I know that plans had been made for me upon my arrival. The visit began with a trip to the woodshop of spindle maker extraordinaire Ken Ledbetter...

...which was literally stacked floor to ceiling with spindles-to-be.

I was given a sneak-peak at his new Russian and Tibetan spindles, as well. And yes, the spindle collection was enhanced!

Then we scooted over to an arts and crafts sale where Lura was selling some of her glorious weaving with her partners Mary and Barbara, who joined us for dinner before I was whisked away to the Tucson Music Hall for a performance of Shrek: The Musical. All in all a wonderful day, and I felt most spoiled by all the treats.

That would have been enough to make any trip worthwhile, but the week went from great to indescribably fabulous the next morning when we travelled in to Crizmac Marketplace and met the Master Spinner class. What a wonderful group of women! It was a joy to teach such an enthusiastic, inquisitive, and daring group of students.

The facility, as most off-campus facilities do, presented a wee bit of challenge for Level One, which is a pretty wet and messy level. The shop itself is lovely...

...and filled with charming and colorful Fair Trade goods from around the world, with a particular emphasis on Mexico. Our classroom was a little warm on some of the hotter days, and it was a little cozy washing our fleeces...

...but we all survived. And will live to laugh about it. Eventually. (And Level 2 would fit in there nicely...)

Tuesday was a day of woolen and worsted, carding and working with fleeces. The route home that day included a stop into Kiwi Knitting Company's fabulous little shop, just across from the historic Rincon Market. Kiwi is the home to this fabulous yarn-stormed bicycle...

...which is apparently driven by this guy...

...knit by Jill Holbrook.

We did stuff Wednesday. I know we did, but I can't really remember what. Master Spinner stuff, I'm sure-I have a lesson plan somewhere to prove it. But Thursday, I remember very well. Too well.

I like to do the Level 1 dye day on the Thursday of the week. We have covered all of the key topics by then, and everybody's brain is overfilled and leaking a little, so the change of pace is very welcome. Usually, dye day is physically gruelling, but kind of fun. Well, for me, it was just plain gruelling.

You see, I woke up in the night with a wee tummy-ache. Which became a REALLY BIG tummy-ache. By 2 a.m, I was worshipping at the great porcelain altar. By 6 a.m., I was pretty sure all I had left to throw up was my own innards, but the fun continued until nearly noon.

Meanwhile, there were 10 people waiting to learn to dye with natural materials. So, green about the gills as I was, I trooped in, pointed vaguely in the general direction of some dye pots and turned them loose. Apparently, they figured it out...

...and fabulous colours were made.

I took a nap.

Then I was given the miracle cure. There is a local food chain called Eegee's and they sell a frozen lemonade drink called, oddly enough, an Eegee. An Eegee was what I needed. That and 12 solid hours of sleep. And I was up and atom again on Friday morning for a day of blending and spindle spinning with the gang.

We wrapped up the class and all (well, mostly all-some had other commitments) went out to dinner together. Where we were joined by wonderfully supportive spouses and by another Master Spinner student, Carl, who had been in my class in North Carolina a few years ago...

...Carl is an Arizonan (Arizonanian? What do you call folks who live in Arizona?) now and dropped by for a visit with his family. La Parilla Suiza had no idea what had hit it--15 people all talking spinning and sipping margaritas. A great wrap-up to the week!

I had planned to spend Saturday touring around Tucson, but you know what they say about best-laid plans. I spent Saturday napping and knitting and staring and regrouping. And now, here I am , on the way to Sedalia. I know Sedalia will also be fabulous, but it's gonna have to work pretty darned hard to top last week in Tucson. (I would, however, be thrilled if we could avoid the day of blech this time around, okay?)

Big hugs to my class from Tucson. Thank you all so much for being who you are. I hope you are resting and recouping after a pretty tough week, and that those of you who have to travel are having safe journeys.

Now, get cracking on that homework!

The SOAR Post

2011-10-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

...'cuz I know you've been waiting for it.

On October 1, I travelled to Manchester NH to attend my second SOAR. Last year, I went as a scholar. This year, I was a mentor. And I only have one word for the experience: WOW.

SOAR was held in a city, in a convention-style hotel, for the first time ever...

...and it turned out to be a pretty good thing. Not only was the hotel well-located, but it was well laid out, with spacious, well-lit rooms, and easy to navigate. The only complaint I had was the coffee-like substance that they served. And if that's the worst I have to cope with, I'm good. (One of my students discovered a marvellous coffee shop just a few blocks away, and a brisk morning stroll took care of the caffeine crisis. There was also a cupcake shop on this route. WIN!)

Up and at 'em on Sunday to grab breakfast with a table full of fabulous fiberistas, followed by a wine/nibblies run and classroom set-up, and it was time for the welcomes and introductions. The day went by in a blur.

Frankly, the week went by in a blur!

Monday through Wednesday, I taught Blending and Spinning for Superior Socks to a very enthusiastic class...

...seen here deep in discussion.

On Wednesday evening, the participants display their samples in the Workshop Showcase, where my group showed off their wee sample socks...

...and an alarming number of yarn samples. I had no idea they were making so much yarn while I was jabbering on about twist and blending in the right amount of nylon!

That night, all of the mentors were gathered together, so I took advantage of their exhaustion to grab some photos to prove that I travelled into some pretty high-falutin' circles...

...a meeting of the minds with Stephenie Gaustad...

...a spinning guru sammich with Sara Lamb and Stephenie...

...cuddles with the highly cuddle-able and very wise Beth Smith...

...another sammich, this time featuring a zesty Deb Menz filling...

...playing coy with Jacey Boggs, and meeting any number of other amazing fibre folk.

I also had the very good fortune later that evening to meet up with Gord Lendrum (left) and Barry Schacht (right)...

...who were posing with Jacey Boggs at this particular moment.

I also got to meet Schacht Spindle Co.'s Production Manager Cindy Lair, with whom I did not pose for a picture, much to my disappointment. She is a lovely lady, and knows sooo much about spinning wheels that it's a little frightening. I want to be like her when I grow up!

The next day was a day off for me, so I slept in a bit, then mosied down to the Marketplace that opened that morning. I was given a spinning lesson in the Ashford booth, so now I finally know how to spin properly...

...(yes, that is Richard Ashford himself!)

I got in line for a fabulous Golding spindle that I HAD to have, then dashed off to join a small group who were headed off to the Millyard Museum in the former Amoskeag Mills site.

We had quite the adventure at the Museum. Imagine four fibre fanatics in a museum dedicated to industrial revolution spinning and weaving equipment and the people who worked it. Dianne and Sarah even got Jen, our guide and the museum's education officer, spinning cotton on a spindle...

Back to the market for the afternoon, where a wee bit of fibre was acquired (because I don't have enough at home!), a quick classroom rearrangement, dinner and we were off on the Retreat Sessions. The Retreat Sessions, for the uninitiated, are half-day workshops. Or rather, the same half-day workshop four times. I saw 70 participants in 2 days. I'm sure I said something that sounded smart at some point in those two days, but I really don't remember. It was fast-paced and busy, and by Saturday evening, I was exhausted. Happy, but exhausted.

I slept in on Sunday, so I missed saying goodbye to some people, but had the chance to hang out in the lobby waiting for my turn on the airport shuttle and see a lot of my new friends off. And SOAR was over. Just like that.

I took a couple of days to tour around the area, then headed homeward on a 2-day journey. When I got here, did I rest? No I did not.

But that's another story...

Souvenirs of Sivia

2011-09-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Being the Fibre Arts Program Coordinator for Fibre Week is a big job, fraught with perils. There are all of those people with pointy sticks waiting out there for next year's schedule already, and I'm typing and arranging as fast as I can.

But right now, I'm going to take a moment to remember Fibre Week 2011. Or rather, the insidious influence of one of the guest instructors.

Meet Sivia Harding.

Oh, she looks sweet and harmless. (Well, actually she is sweet. Very sweet. And kind. But sneaky.)

But she does little things like handing unsuspecting souls a little ball of silk yarn strung with beads, then whispers a few simple steps in their ear. Simple, addictive steps. Before you know it, you have this...

(This is the kind of person we are dealing with here: She couldn't find the clasp she had intended to include with the kit in her bag, so she mailed me one when she got home!)

Then there is this...

...Harmonia's Rings Sweater. It's really Sivia's Harmonia's Rings Cowl, all grown up. Fun, and tremendously clever.

It started something like this: We were waiting in the lunch line, and I mentioned a yarn I was spinning at home that I had no specific plans for. Sivia mentioned that she had a pattern. I expressed interest in seeing said pattern. Later that afternoon, she handed me a photocopy of the pattern. I stuffed it in my bag and went on with the week.

Sivia went off toward home, and eventually I did the same.

I decided the yarn should be a deep midnight blue, so I mordanted it in some alum and copper, then dyed it with Logwood...

Yep, I thought, this would be a great yarn for that pattern. Blue-faced Leicester and silk, about 12 wpi and 4 tpi. I tried to describe the project to a friend and after lots of vague blather about knits and purls and much gesturing, I went hunting for the Ravelry link. Nothing. The sweater that I had begun to have dreams about, apparently, did not really exist. So I dug out the pattern.

That was when I noticed that it was a photocopy of a proof copy, complete with Sivia's corrections scribbled in. (I must state here that, while she is a lovely human being, her handwriting is just short of tortuous to decipher. Anyone who was at the FW Fashion Show already knows this.)

It wasn't until after I had scoured Western Canada for the perfect beads for the collar and cast on that the rest of the world got to see this pattern. I was somewhat gobsmacked by the generosity and trust that Sivia had shown in so casually handing me her lovely work-in-progress.

And now it's done. It's beautiful, the perfect synergy of yarn and pattern. Gloriously rich and deceptively warm. And a reminder of the generous spirit of a newfound friend.

(PS. I know Sivia doesn't need me to shill for her, but I'm gonna say "go to her website and check out all of her awesome patterns" anyway! Every one is a gem.)

The Laziest Blog Entry in History

2011-09-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

I was actually going to sit down and blog today, and may still do so later. But for now, I'm going to let someone else blog for me:

http://mcmurraymusings.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-all-about-spinning-good-yarn.html

It's a profile of me from a non-spinner's perspective.

Who knew I was so awesome?

Who's Who At The Zoo

2011-09-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

Your erratically scheduled fibre arts blogs has been pre-empted so that we can bring you the following information recently learned during a visit to the Calgary Zoo, courtesy of several very young zoo patrons...

There are no caribou in Alberta. These are reindeer. And reindeer do not really fly, 'cuz they couldn't keep them in a zoo if they did.

Wild turkeys look like buzzards, but taste much better.

The more female lions a male lion has, the happier he is. Because the females make all his food for him.

Gorillas are monkeys.

Lemurs are monkeys.

(Insert brother's name here) is also a monkey.

Eagles are NOT raptors. Everyone knows raptors are dinosaurs. That's okay, even zoos can make a mistake.

The elephant god of India is called Ganja.

Boy camels have two humps. Girl camels have one hump. That's how you tell them apart.

These are snow leopards. They're kinda like cheetahs, but they live in the Arctic.

Peacocks are pretty, but they're mean. Kinda like Aunt Kathy.

And, most importantly...

...T-Rexes are like wasps-they can't see you if you hold still.

No, the zoo isn't just for kids, but I'm pretty sure the kids are the most entertaining critters in any zoo!

Nose the the Grindstone

2011-08-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am on the verge of becoming a Delinquent Blogger.

It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about. I have wanted to tell you about the contract that I signed with a small local gallery to sell and exhibit my work. I have wanted to rave on about my current obsession with corespun yarns. I have wanted to share my musings on the end of summer and the smell of fall in the morning air. I've intended to blog all of that, and more.

But it seems that every time I sit down at the computer, there is another email in the inbox. The end of August brings another major event into my life: the deadline for Fibre Week proposals. This means that the hard work begins today.

For those of you who haven't heard, I am the Fibre Arts Program Coordinator at Olds College's Fibre Week. What this glorified title means is that I am the one who chooses the workshops that are part of the event each year. This is a volunteer position, and, let me tell you, it's not as easy as it sounds.

Every year for the past four years, I have received a stack of workshop proposals from fibre artists and teachers in every discipline imaginable. And every year, I have the unenviable task of sorting through these proposals, attempting to predict which ones will draw the most people to Fibre Week. I have to look a year into the future and try and predict whether or not the same people who came for spinning workshops this year will take another spinning workshop, or if they have suddenly developed an interest in basketry. I have to attempt to balance the travel costs with class sizes and potential enrollment as the price of gasoline bounces up and down like a kid on a trampoline. I have to weigh marquee names and experience against the risks of nurturing a new instructor and giving up-and-coming artists a chance to share their knowledge.

All of this feels like an enourmous amount of pressure at times. Inevitably, I cannot please everyone. I will have to disappoint marvelous people who have submitted proposals that I just can't fit into the schedule. I will have to disappoint a student who requested a specific instructor who is simply not available. I will have to turn down a topic or an instructor that I find personally fascinating because of financial considerations. And, somewhere along the line, someone will corner me and express their disappointment in no uncertain terms.

On the other hand, I get to bring a wide variety of classes to our humble little event. I get to be in contact with artists and teachers who are doing things I never even imagined possible, opening my imagination to new possibilities. I get to hear from aspiring spinners, weavers, knitters, feltmakers, dyers, shepherds, and doll makers about what they are interested in. Strangers email me with their dreams and their passions every day.

There is so much possibility in the world of the fibre arts, and I see it all. I wish I could make each and every possibility a reality, but, sadly, we only have so much space and time. And, of course, there is also the unpleasant matter of money.

But that possibility is still out there. There is hope and inspiration to be found in each and every email that pops up in my inbox at this time of year. I do this job, not for the big money and the glory, but because I want to share that hope and inspiration with everyone who comes to Fibre Week, or dreams of coming to Fibre Week. I hope that, in spite of the little disappointments, that hope and inspiration is what comes through in the final schedule that I will build for next year.

And now it's time to roll up my sleeves and get to work!

Ain't No Cure

2011-08-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

...for the Summertime Blues.

No, I'm not gonna raise a fuss, I'm not gonna raise a holler. I'm just immersed in a world of blues. The colour, that is, not the emotion.

So much has gone on since my last post. It's been another month of whirlwind travel, bracketed by various plagues and pestilences. There has been garden upkeep, and the madness of Fibre Week planning for 2012. There has been SOAR preparation, and the first of 4 local workshops. There was a kidney stone (ouch!), and a knee injury (ouch again!), and a really nasty cold. But in between the chaotic moments have appeared wee moments of spinning, knitting, and dyeing. And it seems that the colour of choice is blue.

First, though, the travel. I turned the big five-oh last month. When my family asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told them that I wanted to be with them. That's all. So they put their heads together and came up with a plan to whisk me to Vancouver, where my two older children live, then take a family trip to Gibsons. It was FABULOUS!

We spent the big day out on the ocean, kayaking around Gibsons and Keats Island...

...and I had my 4 favorite people in the world with me. (The fourth is wielding the camera for this picture!)

We may have been a little silly...

...but it was just what I needed.

And now I'm 50, and I've got the Blues.

Blues like this one...

...handspun Blue-faced Leicester/silk blend, mordanted with copper and dyed in logwood. Logwood usually gives purples, and you can certainly see the purple cast in the yarn, but the copper sulphate mordant darkens it to a stunning navy blue. (The mordant also serves to make the notoriously unstable logwood a little more colourfast.)

I'm currently transforming this yarn into Sivia Harding's Harmonia's Rings Sweater...

...in what passes for free time around here these days.

The blue theme continues onto the spinning wheel...

...with this lovely little yarn. The fibre is a batt that I purchased from Lynne Anderson of West Coast Colors at Fibre Week, and the blend is 60% Merino, 20% yak, and 20% silk. Yes, indeed, it IS as yummy as it sounds, and Lynne's batts are a wonder to spin. (In fact, I relieved her of a few more while I was out on the Coast!)

Then there is a little novelty yarn that was inspired by Jacey's workshop...

I really love coils, and this fibre just called out to be coiled. The blues lean toward aqua, but, hey, blue is blue.

Then, there is this today's little distraction...

...a lovely little batt from Atomic Blue. (Blue by Blue!)

So there you have it. From sitting on blue seas...

...to sitting under blue skies...

...spinning and knitting with blue fibre, I clearly have a case of the Summertime Blues.

WHOOSH!

2011-07-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

That was the sound of the last month flying by!

Holy cats! Have I been busy! Doing awesome things. Here is a highlight package:

I went to a workshop with Jacey Boggs...

...shown here splitting top. Yes, you heard me. Splitting top. We made yarns that should seem wrong to a technical spinner, but were actually really right.

You see, it turns out that under that wacky "art yarn" surface lurks a highly technical spinner, with a fascination with how things work and why. I kinda had to bite my tongue a couple of times to keep from finishing her sentences for her, because her philosophies and mine are almost identical. (She also dislikes the label "art yarn". With good reason. That phrase has been applied to a lot of bad spinning. Bad spinning is not art, it is bad spinning. True art yarn is not bad spinning, but Jacey calls her yarns "textured yarns", which works for me.)

Plus we made funky yarns.

Oh, and Jacey, if you see this, I DID add enough twist to the core for my art batt corespun...

...lovely balanced corespun. I think I have also developed a new love for those crazy batts that have always seemed so pointless. (The ones we used in the workshop were from Atomic Blue, and they were amazing! I will be spinning some more of her batts.)

When the workshop was over, I was wending my way homeward when I was kidnapped and taken to a Pirate Island...

...that I really didn't want to leave.

Actually, Liz...

...and Mark were very gracious hosts, who plied me with steaks and wine, then put me to bed in "The Hilton", a guest house on family property on Protection Island just off of Nanaimo. I was treated like a queen, and I really didn't want to leave.

But leave I did. I headed back to Vancouver and spent another couple of days wandering the beaches and hanging out with my fabulous kiddos. Then home. For 5 whole days.

Back on the road, this time to Fibre Week at Olds College. My Alma Mater and one of the highlights of every year.

This year, I volunteered to step in to run the Kids Camp as well as teaching the Master Spinner Program. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

...and it turned out to be as exhausting as it sounds. But fun. I managed to keep 6 kids, ranging in age from 7-12, relatively busy--look at everything we did in 2 days!

Then I tidied the classroom and taught Level 3 of the Master Spinners Program. I had a fabulous class. Again. (Really, I have never had a Master Spinner class who were not fabulous. Seriously. Master Spinner types are just fabulous. That's all there is to it.)

We did all those Level 3 things that we do. There was tpi, cotton, and nature dyeing...

...with spectacular results!

There was the dreaded making of mawatas from silk cocoons, complete with the icky little critters inside...

And much fantastic spinning going on...

The best part of Fibre Week for me always happens outside of the classroom. The fashion show, the vendors, the people. There is always so much going on, and the opportunity to make new friends, and touch base with long-standing friends (notice I did not use the word "old" about my friends!). I had the great pleasure of getting to know the remarkable Sivia Harding, along with getting reacquainted with Patsy Zawistoski and Joan Ruane. I got to hang with friends like Rosemary Harris, Marg Sjostrom, and Jean Curry, all of whom are now my fellow instructors. (Jean teaches for the Master Weaver Program, but we like her anyway. *winky face*) I shared a glass of wine with former students who are all preparing to face Level 6 next year and become Masters themselves.

Then, bang! It was over. I drove home. I slept for the better part of two days. Then I just had to spin. So I spun, and spun, and spun. And today, I dye.

I have a few more days of relative peace and quiet, which I will spend... you guessed it: spinning. You see, I have this batt of Merino/yak/silk that followed me home from Fibre Week. And the sun is shining.

The patio calls...

Postcards from the Road: A Tale of Tragedy and Great Kindness

2011-06-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have had a wonderful week away. Vancouver has been glorious, with only a wee bit of rain last night. Quadra Island was spectacular. Jacey Boggs was inspiring and just plain swell. I had a marvellous visit with my kids, and with new friends Liz and Mark.

But none of that is why I blog this morning. Instead, I want to share a story of Tragedy turned upside-down by Great Kindness.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, an Intrepid Spinner packed her bags for a workshop. This Spinner travels a bit, so she has a pretty reliable system for ensuring that her tools and equipment arrive at the other end safely. She also really likes to fly with one particular airline within Canada because they have always been good to her. This airline is Westjet.

The flight was uneventful but pleasant. The Spinner arrived in Vancouver and managed to get herself to her Cozy Accommodation. She opened her bag, and:

((Insert dramatic music here.))

Her niddy-noddy, the second fibre tool she had ever purchased, waaay back when she was a Fledgling Spinner...DESTROYED.

The Spinner was...somewhat...distraught.

So, being a Spinner of the 21st Century, she did what anyone in this situation would do. She grabbed her cell phone and Tweeted:

"Aaaaaaagggghhhh! @Westjet broke my niddy-noddy!"

Within minutes, West jet responded with:

"What is a niddy-noddy, and how can we help?"

The Spinner sent a Wikipedia link, and explained her predicament. Westjet then Tweeted:

"#Vancouver we need your help. Please let @spindleprincess know if you can help her find a niddy-noddy by noon tomorrow"

They even added the Wikipedia link so Vancouver would know what a niddy-noddy was. Within minutes, the Spinner was deluged with responses. A loaned niddy-noddy was arranged, and a replacement put on hold for when the Spinner could pick it up. All was well.

Then Westjet showed their true colors. They have offered to pay for the replacement niddy-noddy. They have checked in with the Spinner several times to ensure that all is well. They are being AWESOME.

The End.

So, thank you Westjet for your Great Kindness.

The Spinner will be travelling back to her home in the North tomorrow, and can hardly wait to fly Westjet again.

A Postcard from the Road

2011-06-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Vancouver!

I am once again on the move, this time strictly for fun. I'm hanging out in Vancouver, disrupting the lives of my two older children this week before journeying to Quadra Island to take a workshop with the incomparable Jacey Boggs of Insubordiknit fame.

I arrived on Tuesday, and was promptly roped into helping two male actors find budget-friendly dresses for a drag improv show. Words cannot describe the experience, except maybe the word "bizarre". And/or "hilarious". These guys had no idea what women go through to look so good, and it turned out that they were pickier than any girl I've ever shopped with. I came home with sore feet from all the walking, and sore sides from laughing so hard.

Wednesday got off to a bad start...

Yep, that's my Trindle. I pulled it out of my bag to stuff more fibre around it. Apparently that was a bad idea. (After close examination, I have deemed the shaft repairable, but it was a bad idea anyway.)

So I consoled myself with a trip to Maiwa Supply on Granville Island. Things improved quickly...

Yes, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.

I shall digress into a mini-review:

This is an epic work that took authors Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius years to produce, and it shows. The attention to detail is remarkable, and the photos are stunning. There is a ton of information packed into this book, valid information, with references and everything. And not just about sheep--the authors have included other fur-bearing critters, including cats and dogs. Each species and breed is given a full history, a description of its physical attributes, a description of its fleece or fibre, and photos of its fibre unwashed, washed, and spun. This book will prove to be a priceless resource for spinners for years to come, and should be required reading for EVERYONE in the Master Spinner Program.

One small caveat to the Master Spinner types out there, some of the samples are less than perfectly spun, but Deb Robson herself told me that the book is not about perfect spinning, it is about fleece and fibre.

(By the way, I did say that this book contains a ton of information...that is also how much the book weighs! It is wonderful, in this day of ebooks and Kindles to see a publisher commit to a big, solid reference that, frankly, will only appeal to a niche market. But this book should take that niche by storm. It is awesome. BUY IT.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog:

I also scored some dyes and some bits and bobs for the Fibre Week Kids Camp.

Then I mosied on down to the Silk Weaving Studio, where I found these...

SQUEEEEEEEEE!

I can hardly wait to see what today will bring!`

5 Short Stories About the Past Week

2011-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

So much going on around here, yet nothing is happening, so a few short stories:

1. It's wildfire season in Alberta. This happens every year as soon as the snow is gone, and we pretty much take it in stride. The air quality goes up and down, depending upong prevailing winds. Helicopters and water bombers buzz overhead at all hours. The one highway in and out of town often closes. These things happen. But nothing like what has happened to the community of Slave Lake, southwest of here, has happened in my 30 years in the North (you can read more here). The wildfires breached town limits on Sunday night, and it is estimated that between 30 and 50 percent of the community is little more than ashes right now. Thousands have been displaced, many losing everything they had. The damage is still being assessed, so what we can do to help is still sketchy, but I would encourage anyone who wants to help to give to the Canadian Red Cross, who are operating several evacuation shelters in the region.

2. There are still strange men with hammers banging on my house. Our condo board decided 3 years ago to replace the windows, doors, and exterior siding on our townhouses. This year, it is our turn. So there are strange men in and out of my yard, pounding on the walls at 7:30 in the morning. And they are trampling my garden. I am becoming a little testy. Pretty soon, I'm gonna be that old woman out in her nightgown yelling "Hey you kids, git offa my petunias!" We are about two weeks away from being done, if I don't chase the boys off with a rake one of these fine days.

3. The garden is thriving in spite of the construction dudes. I know I'm not supposed to plant before the May long weekend, but I rarely follow rules like that. Besides, about 70 percent of my garden is perennial, so I really have little to no say when things start growing. And growing things are! I have already harvested a bit of rhubarb, and we've been eating chives since the end of April. The strawberries are flowering, and the buds are on the crabapple tree. The onion sets are in, and the root veggies planted. Once the construction is done, my spinning oasis should be good and green and waiting for me.

4. About 10 years ago, a pair of robins nested in the spruce tree outside our gate, and we have had robins in our yard ever since. I was thrilled about two weeks ago when they showed up again. This year, they are raiding last years crabapples from the high branched that I didn't get to before the snow. The birds swoop in and try to grab the crabapples on the fly, since there are two fascinated cats watching from under the tree, but robins are not known for their swooping and grabbing prowess. This means that there has been a sporadic rain of squishy, rotten crabapples being dropped on the construction dudes. I feel this may be Karma in action.

5. Would you trust me with your offspring? I hope so, because, as of last Thursday, I am now leading the Kids Mini Fibre Camp at Fibre Week. (Because coordinating the workshop program, teaching for the Master Spinner Program, hosting the fashion show and saving the world is not keeping me busy enough when I am in Olds.) The instructor originally lined up will be unable to make it, and there was a sudden surge in interest in the camp, so we decided to look for someone to take it on. After a rather brief contemplation of the options, I decided that I wanted to play. Then reality set in. Well, panic, really. How can I keep 8 kids busy for 2 days??

Teh Interwebz to the rescue! I have been inspired to felt, dye, spin and weave with the gaffers, and I'm designing some pretty awesome projects now. Two days is nowhere near long enough to do all of the projects that are flowing through my mind now (...perhaps we shall have to bring back the weeklong format next year. Hmmmm... I have the power to do that!)

I'm still teaching Level 3 of the Master Spinner Program as well and I have some fun stuff planned for the kids there, too. Only 5 weeks left until Fibre Week, and I'm getting pretty excited! And it's not too late for you to register, either, but you'd better check it out quickly, because we make the final decisions on class cancellations if they aren't filled by June 1st--I would hate to see someone miss out on a class because they waited too long! Check out the website for more details.

Of course, there is much life to be lived between now and then.

And maybe a few more short stories...

Excuses, Excuses

2011-05-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

"Why hasn't Michelle been blogging?"

"I hope she's okay--do you think she was hit by a bus?"

"Has she been travelling?"

"Maybe she slipped through a wormhole, and is now living in another dimension where there is more time in a day?"

"If so, she should have time to blog..."

Yes, I can hear your thoughts as you ponder yet another drought on this blog. The truth is that I have been busy. Doing...stuff.

Stuff like knitting this shawl...

Queen Anne's Lace by MMario KKnits (Ravelry link) out of the yarn that I featured in this post. Obsessively knitting all 165 rows of the chart, each row different enough to drive a sane woman mad.

Or stuff like knitting this shawl...

Swallowtail by Evelyn Clark. Made with Kid Seta mohair/silk blend. For no apparent reason, except to answer a question for a friend.

Or stuff like spinning and plying 300 g of alpaca/silk/cashmere blend into 970 yards of sportweight yarn, with another 300 g to go. Or stuff like spinning three bobbins of singles in BFL/silk blend, worsted weight. Or stuff like knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging my apparently never-to-be-finished Penelope top.

Of course, I've been doing all of the usual stuff, too, like cooking, and laundry, and driving a teenager to and from work. And dealing with the ~~destruction~~ construction crew that is doing the renovations on the outside of our townhouse. And walking the dog and getting the garden ready. You know, stuff.

Important stuff.

"I think Michelle sounds a little defensive, don't you?"

"Yep, I think she is listing all of these things she has done to hide something else..."

ALL RIGHT! I CONFESS!!

I have been doing all of this stuff, I really have. But the real reason I have not been blogging is, well, because I have a new love. Her name is Esmeralda, and I have been spending every spare moment with her...

It's true what they say about riding a bicycle by the way...it's as if I've never stopped, even though I haven't been on a bike for over 20 years. I had forgotten how free you feel, with the wind in your face and your feet pedalling like mad. I had forgotten how far you can go under your own steam, and how the world looks from the seat of a bicycle. I'm just a wee bit enamored of the whole thing right now.

So, I do apologise for not keeping you updated on all of my doings for the past month, but...

With or Without U

2011-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't noticed, I'm a Canadian gal. (I was told once that I didn't LOOK Canadian, so I thought I should clarify this.) I am proud of the fact that I was born and raised in Canada, and I am happy to live in our polite, multicultural, albeit wintry, nation.

But, being a Canadian who travels to and sends written articles to the US, and teaches visiting American students, I am beginning to feel very conflicted. Not about political differences or economic issues. No, I am conflicted about the letter U.

You see, even though Canada and the US are joined at the hip geographically, economically, and culturally, there are some subtle, yet oddly profound differences in our languages. And herein lies my struggle.

These differences are as a result of the fact that Canada remained an outpost of the British Empire for much longer than the US did. Our language and spelling are still influenced by the Queen's English. There are a lot of little ways this shows itself in my everyday life, but as someone who is sharing fairly specialised information across the border, it is beginning to stress me out.

One big one: Americans say "zee", Canadians say "zed". This causes me no end of stress when I am teaching in the US. I speak casually of inserting zed twist into your yarns, and I am met with blank looks. Not every time, but often enough to make me feel self-conscious. So I try very hard to say zee, or translate after I have said zed. It feels awkward, or rather, I feel awkward. Especially when someone very kindly informs me that it is okay to say zed, because they know Canadians talk funny.

Then there is "re" versus "er", most notoriously, in my life anyway, in fibre. Or fiber. Spellcheck will not acknowledge "fibre", no matter how many times I reset the freakin' preferences. That little red ziggy line appears every time. When I typed in a Google search for a fibre source, I used to get "Did you mean fiber?" (They have fixed that, but it used to bug me. A lot.) And the same thing happens when I type theatre, and centre. I know a lot of people who have given up on "re" and just joined the "er" crowd. I'm just not ready to go there yet.

But I'm really ready to say goodbye to the superfluous U. It lurks in words like colour and honour and splendour. It takes a whole extra keystroke to create, and it makes words look...old-fashioned. There is a certain visual symmetry to letter-o-letter-o-letter that I prefer. I'm done with that U, and I merrily type away, ignoring it's existence (and overriding my English (Canadian) Spellcheck setting). And here lies the crux of my dilemma.

As a linguistically patriotic Canadian, who will not surrender her "re" words, who thinks turning "light" into "lite" is sheer laziness, who says "zed" with pride, how can I justify excluding the Canadian U? This somehow feels like a betrayal of the language I was raised speaking, or at least writing. I am often corrected by Canadian editors or web designers when I spell color "wrong". I am so torn. But I think that U is a pain in the a**.

Now, I have nothing against U as a general principle. Without U, a lot of words would become ridiculous. Who has ever heard of a nicorn, or a nicyle. And a lot of words would change radically without it. Our would become or, making possession very ambiguous: our house would become or house. In fact, without U, it would become or hose. Totally different. But color is still a word describing a hue (or a he, without U), just like colour. An honor is still high praise, even without the U. There are some places I just don't like seeing that U, places where it just seems unnecessary.

So, as I prepare handouts for SOAR, as I blog, I struggle. Do I stay consistent with my "pure" Canadian spellings and put that stupid U in there? Or do I compromise all of my other Canadianisms by leaving it out and spelling the words the way I like them. Or do I throw caution to the wind and mix and match as I please? The last is what I want to do, but it smacks of a descent into chaos. Without consistency, language loses its meaning.

U no wut I mean?

Protest to Party

2011-04-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Outcry to celebration.

When people come together in peaceful protest, sometimes good things happen. One of those good things happened today.

I wrote earlier this week about the cuts to music programs at Keyano College, and about the planned protest this afternoon. A group of students who were about to lose their classes and a group of people who care about the Arts and Arts education came together and there was...music.

There were strings...

...and brass...

...and spontaneous jamming.

There were signs...

...and more signs.

And the best part? The College issued a press release stating that due to the public reaction to their decision, the Board of Governors would be reviewing the situation and seeing what can be done to save the programs in question. And then they threw in free hot dogs, cookies and hot chocolate for the protesters.

We left after about an hour. It was getting chilly. But the young musicians headed to the street corner in front of the college and held a bit of a party. They waved at passing vehicles, and played music and danced.

A week ago, we were a community about to lose its music. Tonight, I have hope. These kids are going to rock our world!

Please Don't Stop the Music

2011-04-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Another rant, no fibre content at all. But if I do not speak out for my fellow artists, who will?

The local Institution for Higher Learning, also known as Keyano College, announced their new operating budget on Thursday of last week (March 31). This spanky new budget included some new programs, such as a Wildlife Management Diploma, a Community Wellness and Addictions Diploma, and Pre-Employment Carpentry. All wonderful new educational opportunities. BUT...

...they also announced that due to a freeze in Provincial funding, they would be "suspending" their full Music Diploma Program and their Music Instrument Repair Program. The four full-time faculty members of these two programs were laid off. There were no other program cuts, and only three others laid off in the entire institution--all of them support staff.

Now, this is a problem for me for several reasons. First of all, it's always the Arts programs to go when the money gets tight. This time it was music, but the last time the budget was bad at this particular institution, it was the Visual Art Program that got nailed. The Arts are always considered "fluff" by educational institutions, usually due to low enrollments. Yes, I realize that the demand for advanced training in music in Fort McMurray is not as high as the demand for truck-driving certification, but a balanced education, and a balanced school, should have room for both.

And I would like to point out that the funding for this program was not cut by the Province. It was simply deemed to be needed elsewhere by the College. The money that had formerly taught local young people to play and repair musical instruments is now going...somewhere else.

So you may be thinking, "No great loss--those kids have other opportunities to learn music.", and you are right. But this will mean travelling away from home, finding living accommodations and attending institutions that cost the family far more, both financially and emotionally. Not everyone is ready to leave home for university at 17, and not everyone can afford to. Now they have no choice. And once those kids leave, very few of them come back. We are sending our next generation of local musicians and teachers away to other communities, leaving no young minds to come and keep us old fogies from getting mired in the way things have always been done. Or just retiring. Or dying out. The youth of a community is its future, and we are sending our youth away to centres that still offer opportunities for them to explore their talents.

My second reason for standing up to speak is this: the Music Instrument Repair Program is unique. It is the only program of it's kind in Canada, and is regarded world-wide as one of the finest. There is one other program like it in North America. In Iowa. That's it. Students have come from Japan, Germany, and Australia to attend this program, and are now making the world sound much better by keeping those instruments in tip-top condition. When someone last flung statistics at me, this program had a 94% graduate employment rate. There was a demand for this program.

However, Keyano College in its wisdom, points out that completion of a training program is not a requirement to work in the musical instrument repair field, therefore training technicians in these skills is not necessary. This reasoning leaves me speechless, especially since I work for a program that grants a college diploma that has absolutely NO useful application when it comes to being employable in ANY field (except, maybe, teaching for the Master Spinner Program). A program, I might add, that has had incredible support from Olds College, and continues to have it in spite of the fact that Olds College did not get any funding increases from the Province either.

It seems to me that at one time, there was no need to be formally educated in education to become a teacher, either, but that demand for more skilled and trained teachers meant that teacher training had to be developed. And education became more standardized, more reliable, and more accessible. The same applies to nurses, to welders, and even to truck drivers (all of whom are trained at Keyano). It seems very short sighted of Keyano to say that offering a standard training to instrument repair technicians is pointless. And shouldn't we take the approach that no education should be considered a waste, especially if we ARE educators?

My last reason for speaking out now is that people I know have been thrown out of jobs. I do have a bias here. My friends have been hurt. People who have brought music and joy and friendship into my life have been impacted, as have their families. There is nowhere else in town for these people to find work in their fields, so they will be leaving, along with those young people who would have been their students. This means, among other things, that Fort McMurray will be losing a hell of a jazz combo. Not to mention the volunteer hours these people have put in with the Community Band and Choir, local high school students, and other community commitments. Four vital, active members of a pretty small and close-knit Arts community are packing up to leave us.

There is hope, though. A group of effected students and supporters of the Arts are rallying at Keyano on Thursday to show their support for music in our community. The details are here on Facebook, or you can tune into 103.7 Mix FM for information. And if you can't come out and sing along with us, you can call or email the college to let them know how you feel.

If we do not support our local artists, pretty soon our communities will become very bland, quiet, and soulless places to live. And who wants to live in a place like that?

Make 'Em Laugh

2011-03-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

That's what the old song says. It has always seemed like sound advice to me. So, with that in mind, I decided to try something new. Laughter Yoga.

I do "regular" yoga--Hatha yoga, really--on a sporadic basis, and I have been exploring Yin Yoga, which I really like, so Laughter Yoga was not such a far stretch. My yoga guru and good friend Heather, who operates the Ananda Center for Balance here in Fort McMurray, was offering a Laughter Yoga Leader training workshop. It just all came together.

Seven other intrepid souls and I joined Heather for two days of breathing, laughing and stretching, and it was AMAZING. And the best part is that I am now certified to lead others in the practice, so I don't have to stand around laughing by myself. (I figure if I am in a group, it is less likely that I will be carted away by the men in little white coats...)

Laughter Yoga is not like your standard yoga, where you twist yourself into a lot of shapes that not even pretzel dough could achieve. You simply stand, or sit, and do a series of exercises designed to enhance your breathing and lift your spirits. The technique was developed by an Indian medical doctor, Dr. Madan Kataria, after he noticed that patients with a positive attitude recovered faster. He started out using jokes to get people laughing, but the jokes wore thin pretty quickly. He then developed methods of getting people to laugh for no reason at all, starting with making laughing sounds like ho, ho and ha, ha, ha. It seems that the body does not differentiate between laughter that is real and laughter that is pretend. So we pretend to laugh, and soon, for most of us, we are laughing for real.

And we laugh. And laugh. The literature for the program tells us that 10 minutes of healthy laughter is the equivalent of 30 minutes on a treadmill. I believe that--after the multiple sessions over the course of the workshop, I was exhausted. And exhilarated!

We also addressed letting go and playing. Many of the exercises in Laughter Yoga are designed to release a childlike sense of wonder and play. We wore silly hats and played make-believe games. And laughed. Looking into the eyes of someone who is laughing will set off another spate of laughing, too. So we laughed some more. It was a marvelous release, and I really do feel better for having laughed so hard for so long.

I am now working to laugh alone, though I still feel a little self-conscious laughing at myself in the mirror. It came much more easily today, and I suspect tomorrow will be even easier. I'm a laughing fool.

There are 8 of us who are certified to lead LY now, along with Heather, and we have founded a LY Club here in town. It is free for anyone who wishes to attend and the details are on Ananda's website. Our inaugural session will be on Sunday, April 17, 3-4 pm. And for those of you who are planning to come to Fibre Week, there will be laughter there, too. The where and when TBA.

So, if you see me dancing around, clapping my hands and laughing like a loon, do not assume that my cheese has finally slid off my cracker. I'm just doing yoga.

...And On A Brighter Note

2011-03-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Whew! I'm glad I got that off my chest yesterday. We now return you to our regularly scheduled fibre blog:

Hey! Wanna try something new? If you happen to be free on Friday afternoon, come play with silk and shibori.

I will be leading a workshop called Get the Fibre Bug at the Haxton Centre here in Fort McMurray as part of their Art in Nature program. The program runs weekly on Friday afternoons from 1:30 to 3:30, and this Friday, March 18, it will be all about the insects we love to spin, weave, and dye with. We will work together to tie our own one-of-a-kind shibori scarf while I natter on about silk worms and sericulture, how we process and spin silk, and the different types of silk available to us. Then our scarves will go into the dyepot and we will explore the wonders of cochineal, that wonder bug that gives us the most glorious reds.

And the best part? It's absolutely FREE! You heard me, free. And you get a spanky scarf to take home at the end. How can you beat that?

Winning! Or What is Wrong With the Internet

2011-03-14T15:06:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Today's post has very little to do with knitting, spinning or string in general. It is a rant, based upon personal responses to recent events and too much cold medication. You may take or leave the opinions expressed below, according to your own personal editing mechanisms. Just because it is on the internet does not mean the following has any value to anyone besides the author.

Well, all that found time I wrote about in my last post got eaten up pretty darned quick! Here I am, ten days later, playing catch-up again.

Since we last visited, I have been to Edmonton, where Miss Julia had surgery on her knee, and back. I spent most of last week sitting and waiting, knitting mindless wristwarmers, and pondering the Mysteries of the Universe. And now I am down with another head cold that is making me too groggy and grumpy to do much except ponder some more.

I have pondered the events of my past month, and the factors that led up to my misadventures with US Customs. I have pondered the Great Question of art versus craft. I have pondered the bizarre weather of this past winter, its causes and its impact on my life. I have pondered survival tactics for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. But mostly, I have pondered technology, the internet, and social media.

You see, I have been engaged in a triangular love-hate relationship with my computer and cell-phone for the past seven or eight years, as they have subtly inserted their tentacles deeply into every aspect of my life. I resent the intrusion of the constant ringing of the phone in my pocket, yet I cannot leave the house without it for fear I miss something important. I dread opening my emails each day, not knowing if good or bad news lurks there, but I am addicted to that beep that lets me know there is a new incoming message. I remember the halcyon days when multi-tasking meant listening to music when I knit, yet I thrive on juggling emails, phone calls, a person in the room, and plying a complex boucle yarn. All at the same time. While supper is cooking.

As the years have passed, I have come to rely more and more on my computer. I use it to write and print letters and information. I use it to make art. I use it to organize and store my pictures. I use it to organize Fibre Week from 700 km away. I use it to organize workshops. I use it to teach. I use it to stay in touch with family and friends. I use it to find out what is happening in the world around me.

I am more connected than ever, too. I carry a laptop when I travel to stay in touch. I have emails and Facebook on my phone. I tweet from all over, thanks to SMS. I am wired into the world.

But lately, all of the nonsense and bullsh*it coming across the wireless waves is really annoying me. From bad spinning and knitting tips being foisted onto unsuspecting beginners on forums and newlists to the whole Charlie Sheen debacle, I feel like the internet is drowning in a sea of swill. All garbage, all day. We are so "in touch" that we are losing touch with reality. What is real is the horror of the earthquake in Japan. What is unreal is the deluge of hateful Facebook updates suggesting that the earthquake was payback for Pearl Harbor or Japan's whaling activities. What is real is that Charlie Sheen in a cocaine-addled celebrity in dire need of help. What is not real is that he is WINNING! Or funny.

Yet, every time I fire up the old computer, there it is, in all it's glory. Unlimited information. Such that it is in the 21st Century. Communicated to us instantly. We are in touch with the world around us, all day, every day. We know EVERYTHING!! All at once!

I like the Information Age. I love that I can keep track of people's lives via Facebook, and that I can type my rambling philosophical thoughts into this blog. The internet is a good thing. Most of the time.

In 1964, a rather clever fellow by the name of Marshall McLuhan wrote a book about television and its influence on society. He coined the phrase "The medium is the message", which, essentially, means that the way information is delivered influences how that message is received. Little did Mr. McLuhan know how true that would become in the internet age. Everything on teh interwebz is True! Everything on the world wide web is Important! Every email is Urgent! Every tweet, status update, and blog post is Vital Information, without which, the WORLD WILL END!!!!

McLuhan's opinion was that as news and information invaded the home, it became more intimate, more a part of our day-to-day lives. We could not separate the information on television from our daily lives anymore. I wonder if he ever imagined a day when we carried our media in our pockets and had 24-hour access to that information. Or that information having 24-hour access to us.

We have lost the ability to turn the message off. The medium is so ingrained in our lives that we cannot escape the message. McLuhan suggested that the content of that message itself was more or less irrelevant, which leads me to my point. We are losing our sense of perspective. We are unable to discern good information from bad. We are losing our ability to think critically. We are becoming media-driven zombies, unable to escape the constant barrage of information, good and bad, and increasingly unable to differentiate which is which. We are becoming more isolated, and more cruel to each other.

Now, I am not saying that there were no sources of bad information before the internet conquered the world. I am not saying that there was not specious gossip, or pointless distractions thrown at us. Nonsense and bullsh*t were invented 15 minutes before civilization was. But, with electronic media in our faces 24/7, beeping urgently at us, we do not have the time to sift through every message we receive for the facts. And the facts are getting few and far between. With more and more social media sites and blogs, we are getting fewer facts and a lot more opinions. Not that opinions are bad--this whole post is nothing more than an opinion--but they are often used in place of facts. Because we are so constantly bombarded, we are not sorting our information and opinion and fact are becoming one.

The key to survival is to learn how to look past the medium to the message. The internet has become so much a part of our lives that we cannot live without it, or see past it. But it is only a tool, just like a hammer. We can choose to use a hammer to build, or to destroy. But that is up to each of us as individuals. We can do the same with our blogs, our tweets, our status updates. We each of us control the medium. We ARE the internet and social media. We can be a positive force, building a better world, by choosing not to spread bad information or mean comments. We can make sure of our facts before we share information on forums or blogs. We can stop retweeting gossip and speculation.

Information is currency. And the more stable the currency, the greater its value. We cannot censor the thoughts and opinions of others, but we can question their value. We do not have to blindly believe it because it is streaming into our computers and phones. We can get second opinions and form opinions of our own. We can question "facts" that seem odd. We can check with a second source before we drink the Kool-aid. (Seriously, a recent study found that most students rely on the first information they find and do not seek a second source. And several bloggers argued that the study was unfair, because the researchers doing the study made their website "too believable" or that the children were too young to know better. Kids question Santa Claus, but not the tree octopus. They can find porn, but not information on where Egypt is actually located. What is that about, then?)

We are thinking creatures. So let's think when we use the internet. Let's not turn off our brains because of a few flashy graphics or a viral link. If we let the medium dictate our lives, that zombie apocalypse I am preparing for will happen a lot sooner than we expect!

Found Time

2011-03-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

I am home, safe, warm, and sick. Well, okay, I'm recovering from being sick.

And I was suddenly faced with 2 weeks of time that I had not previously had at my disposal. Found time, as it were.

After my little adventure in Vancouver, I flew home to -35 degree temperatures and a fabulous head cold that laid me flat out for three or four days. Then, just as I was feeling better, that nasty little virus came back for another swing at me. I did little to nothing for my first week of found time, except for sleep.

I have, however, been checking my emails and Facebook, and I do have to send warm thanks to everyone who wrote or checked-in. Your support and understanding has been amazing, and I know that things will work out in the end.

Having said that, this has become my new theme song:

I am up and about again, and as my sinuses dry up, I have been spinning.

I finished up the stunning sock yarn that I started from fibre dyed by the incomparable Sarah Wilson (theytoldmesew on Etsy), in colors specially chosen for me...

...3-ply BFL/silk blend, 6 tpi, and 18 wpi. It is being knit into a lacy sock that plays with the almost luminescent quality of the yarn.

Then I finished up the second bobbin of bison/Merino/silk/qiviut blend from Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts and plied it up...

...2-ply, 5 tpi, 20 wpi, and as cushy and as soft as you would expect from the blend of lovely soft things that went into it.

Then, for no apparent reason, I decided I needed some woollen Cormo...

...2-ply, 5 tpi, 12 wpi, cushy and soft, too.

There is now some baby alpaca/silk/cashmere on the wheel, because once I started spinning I didn't want to stop!

Except, of course, to cast on a second lace shawl. Because one set of insane little charts is not quite enough to drive me mad. Actually, the aforementioned Sarah Wilson asked me a simple question about Swallowtail, and I had to cast it on to work the answer through...and I just kept going.

I haven't just sat and spun for ages, let alone knit not one, but two shawls.

It's a good thing I found all this time laying around. Better use it up quick before someone else comes along and claims it.

Derailed!

2011-02-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men...

When last I checked in, I was scrambling to prepare for 3 weeks of Master Spinner classes in the American Southwest. Today, I am stranded in Vancouver, where I have been since Friday evening.

The trip started off well enough. An uneventful flight from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, renting a car without incident, and a fun night of recording a vocal track for the Odd-Lot Puppetry Company. Great to see Brendan and Lisa and Troy, and The Water Show (written by Yours Truly) is enjoying a stunning revival. Gorgeous puppets and a spanky new soundtrack, along with a slight rewrite to emphasize the importance of water conservation.

Lunch with my Mom the next day, then off to Edmonton International Airport again. Onto a plane for Vancouver...an odd route to my layover in Las Vegas, but one that saved some serious coin for the college when I booked it. Once again, an uneventful flight, with lots of knitting accomplished.

The changeover from a domestic flight to an international flight is quite a hectic scramble at YVR, but went smoothly, so I was quite calm, though a little winded, by the time I got to US Customs and Immigration. The young man in the booth asked the purpose of my trip, and when I told him I was going to some spinning classes, he asked whether I was going to learn or to teach. Armed with supporting paperwork from Olds College, I had no reason to lie, so I told him I was teaching. He seemed rather flustered and asked for my visa, and when I produced the letter and paperwork from the college, I was sent down the hall for secondary questioning. No problem, I had been through this before, as have others who work for the Master Spinner Program.

Except, this time, I was denied entry.

The whole episode was rather unpleasant and I will not get into the gory details here, except to say that at one point I was told that it was a waste of time to spend 7 years to learn to spin, and at another point, the legality of making people pay for spinning lessons was questioned. The worst of it was that the agent who was dealing with me had to go into several back rooms to consult with "experts" on my case, and each time he did, a head popped around a door frame to peer at me as if I were some sort of exotic bug. The agent in charge would then explain that I teach spinning, "not the bicycle kind" and make an odd, drafting motion with his hands. Then they would all turn and look at me again. I really began to feel that spinning was some sort of terrible thing to be doing, since it got these guys so worked up.

It was actually kind of surreal.

In the end, they used a rather arcane loophole to deny my application for entry and sent me on my merry way. This incident will not affect my future travel into the US or appear anywhere on any sort of record. I was considered "compliant" and "nice". ( I can hear some of you laughing at the thought of me being either. Stop that!) One guy even apologized.

So. Here I was in Vancouver for longer than the one-hour layover I had been expecting.

Fortunately for me, two of my lovely children just so happen to live in Vancouver, so I had someplace to go and someone to give me a hug. I drank a bottle of wine and cried like I have never cried before in my life.

I got up the next morning and the sun was shining and life was going on, so I figured I had survived the whole episode, more or less unscathed. Sometimes life throws these things at us, for reasons we cannot even begin to fathom, and it is how we cope that shows our true character. My true character appears to be much calmer than I thought it was, because I have chosen to not panic, not quit teaching forever, and not go on some sort of anti-American rampage. Stuff happens. Get over it.

The people I truly feel badly for in this situation are the students in Tucson. They have been anticipating this class, taking time off work and traveling to attend. However, an obtuse ruling by a single Customs and Border Patrol agent have denied them the opportunity to have the class run as expected. This program is unique in the world, and the rules don't seem to apply, or not apply as the case may be. I genuinely hope that the college and the US organizers can work this out and we can continue with the classes as planned. I'm standing by...

As for me, I get an unexpected vacation in Sunny Vancouver (which was not an ironic statement until this afternoon when snowflakes the size of small kittens began to fall from a lead grey sky). I have had the opportunity to hang out with the lovely and talented Miss Lexi, to walk on the beach, and to nom on Solly's bagels. I have a loving and supporting family. And I have had the kindness and support of the administration at Olds College, and the support of the US organizers to keep me going.

On Friday, this was the most devastating event of my life. By yesterday, it was the beginning of a new adventure. In two weeks, it will be another funny story for the repertoire.

Sometimes, life throws these things at us. Deal with it. Make it an adventure.

I have.

Messin' With Ur Space/Time Continium

2011-02-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

There is nothing wrong with my life that couldn't be fixed by a clone and a wormhole. It's that simple. If there were 2 of me and we could both bend space and time, everything would be peachy...

(Please note that the misspelling of "continuum" in the post title is the lol cat's, not mine!)
I've whined before about the lack of time in any given day, and I shall whine again. I ~~occasionally~~ always bite off more than I can chew. This time around it is 3 Master Spinners classes in 3 cities in 3 weeks. Which means I am prepping for 3 full weeks of travel, organizing 3 separate classes, in 3 different (and unknown) venues, working with 3 different coordinators. I'm sourcing and shipping materials and rounding up resources and equipment. And packing, packing, packing. (That's 3 weeks worth of packing. Get it?!? Hah!)

On top of that, I am finalizing contracts and workshop information with 2 other festivals and negotiating a couple of local natural dye workshops. My inbox resembles Grand Central Station right now.

Add to that the addition of my new exercise regimen, intended to help my knee heal without surgical intervention, and all of the day-to-day joys of domestic living, and the day is over before it starts.

One thing that I promised myself I would do in 2011, though, is find time to spin. Every day. And, no matter what else is going on, that time is found. Every day.

Unfortunately, I have not seen the fruits of this dedicated effort until this week...

...which, I suppose is what I deserve for starting the year off with 1300 yards (1188m) of laceweight worsted 2-ply. For those of you into stats, that is 175 g, 12 tpi, with a Count of 12s, 147RTex/2, 36 wraps per inch. For those of you not into stats, that is lots and lots of fairly fine yarn.

It is, as my friend Marg says, a skein of great beauty. The fibre is from Kimber Baldwin at Fiber Optic, 80% Merino/20% silk, gradation dyed from deep indigo to gold...

...with the colors blending brilliantly in between.

And what do I see when I look at this cake of yarn? A swirling vortex...or...A WORMHOLE.

I have cast on and am now knitting Queen Anne's Lace from MMarioKknits (Rav link) to play up the swirl of colors from dark to light, and if I may say so, the yarn is brilliant.

So, I am well on my way to having that wormhole I need. Now to work on the clone...

Vegas, Baby!

2011-02-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

The Prodigal Blogger returns!

Briefly.

I had the greatest of intentions to post weekly this year, even scheduling a time every week to blog. And I did it for two weeks. Sorta.

Then I took a vacation...

Vegas, Baby!

I travel a lot. I love to travel, see new things, meet new people. I think there may be a wee drop of Gypsy blood somewhere in my background. But in the past couple of years, every trip I have taken has had a work component. I was beginning to suspect that I was afraid to take a vacation and relax.

And I took another vacation-phobe with me...

...the lovely and talented Miss Lexi.

We went to Las Vegas. Sin City. What happens there, stays there. And what did we do?
We slept. And walked. We saw some shows. We ate.

We did not get drunk and stay that way (in spite of the yard-long Bellinis in so many of our pictures). We did not hire escorts. We did not steal tigers. We spent a lovely five days resting, strolling, shopping, and reconnecting. We were there for 4 days before we realized we hadn't even strayed outside of a three-hotel radius.

It was amazing.

The ~~excuse~~ reason for the trip was to see Cher in her final performances at Caesar's Palace. I've been a fan forever and had been trying for the last three years to see this show while on a teaching junket, but always missed it by a week or two. When I heard these were the final shows, I just said "f*** it" and booked a trip...

...and I saw Cher, amazing costumes and all. The show was pure Vegas, and may I just say that Cher can still bring it.

We also went and saw Cirque du Soleil's Beatles Love, which was awesome, as all of Cirque's shows are. The combination of the almost overwhelming imagery and the music of the Fab Four was more than words can describe. We ventured out of our little safety zone to see The Lion King at the Mandalay Bay, as well. I've seen the show before, and it never fails to move me to tears. A remarkable piece of theatre, any way you look at it.

We went up the Eiffel Tower at the Paris...

...which is only half the height of the real thing, but still plenty high enough for me. We ventured into the Fashion Show Mall and stayed for a whole day. We meandered down to the Wynne under an almost full moon...

...and we watch the Sirens of Treasure Island, which left us somewhat unimpressed...

I believe the exact comment was "Well. That was informative and educational." We did, however, enjoy the running commentary of three fellow Canadians who referred to the boatload of shirtless pirates as "Shippendale's" along with a few less PG-rated comments.

We hung out admiring the animals in The Secret Garden of Sigfried and Roy...

... and ate some of the most wonderful meals ever. However, we also visited Hot Dog on a Stick far too frequently...

...and indulged in a few frozen hot chocolates from Serendipity 3.

All in all, a wonderful vacation.

I was clever enough to book myself a couple of days on either side of Vegas in Vancouver, where I got to hang out not only with Miss Lexi but with Number One Son Brendan as well. There were long, philosophical discussions on art...

...along with some less intellectual activity.

I had such a great time, I think I may even try this vacation thing again sometime...but not too soon. It seems the downside of taking a vacation is that you have to come back to reality eventually. Though I'm still resisting...

There has been spinning and knitting galore going on since I got home, though. A good rest was apparently all I needed to get over that post-holiday slump my work was in.

It's good to be back behind the wheel.

2011-01-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

Well, Jane, it just goes to show you. It's always somethin'.

~Roseanne Roseannadanna
Here we are, already ankle-deep in a brand new year. Resolutions have been made, and broken. Hopes for a better year than the last still linger in the air, though, like the smoke from New Years Eve fireworks.

Here I am, unadorned. This is me, facing another trip around the sun...

...the real me, just a middle-aged woman, facing an uncertain future after a tough year, with hope and optimism. And I'm okay with that.

As it was for so many around me, 2010 was a brutal year in the Boyd Homestead. We have had deaths in the family, dire medical issues, and financial turmoil. Friends have been through marital strife, serious accidents, and job loss. A couple we have known for years lost their 16-year-old son in a car crash three days before Christmas. There has been fire, flood, and pestilence. Brutal, indeed.

And after such a year, the new year always gives us hope that it will be better. It will. And it won't. Because with all joy comes sorrow. And with all sorrow comes joy. The trick is not letting the sorrow seem heavier than the joy.

For all of the loss, pain, and stress 2010 brought me, it also brought great personal joys. I got to teach more than 100 people to spin, and travel to places I had never seen in the process. I was awarded a SOAR scholarship. I met wonderful new people who have opened my eyes to possibilities I had never before dreamed. I welcomed the grandbabies of friends into this world. I spent time with my brilliant children, watching them mature into remarkable human beings.

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.

After the highs and lows, the stress and the sorrow, Steve and I chose to spend our Christmas cloistered in our home. We slept when we were tired, and we ate when we were hungry. We exchanged gifts that were simple and thoughtful. We ventured out once or twice in the week between Christmas and New Year, to see friends who had been lost in the chaos of the past several months or to treat ourselves to sushi, but otherwise, we laid very low.

I have often joked that my stress level was the only thing that was keeping me upright. Sadly, that was closer to the truth, and now that I have released all of that stress, I am finding it difficult to get things going again.

But now there is a fresh calendar on the wall, open to the first page. And already that calendar is filling up with new adventures, and new challenges. I am off to Las Vegas next week with the lovely and talented Miss Lexi to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing Cher perform live. And in February, I will be going to Arizona to teach another crop of new Master Spinners. Of course, there are already medical appointments and a surgery marked on that calendar too. With the good comes the bad.

This will be the year that I turn 50 (It's in July, so you have plenty of time to spin and knit/weave a lovely gift...). I'm getting too old to sweat the small stuff. So, at this time of resolutions and plans, hope and reflection, here is my promise to myself:

I am going to live this year, and every other, embracing the joys and the sorrows that come my way. I will live every day in delight and wonder, and face the challenges that cross my path with as much courage and grace as I can muster.

Oh, and I'm going to spin.

You bet your a** I'm going to spin.

Spinny Tour 2010, Part Three:Sedalia Master Spinner Class

2010-12-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a long cold month since I came home from my last spinning tour, but the warm memories still linger. And some of the best memories are those from Sedalia, Missouri.

I went there the first week of November to teach Level One of the Master Spinner Program for Olds College. I thought I was pretty well prepared, but there were a lot of wild cards in the mix. New material to teach (I'd never taught Level One before), unknown surroundings (a church basement in a city I'd never been to), and mystery supplies ( I had ordered fleeces from a MSP student in the area, but not seen them yet).
And I had a co-teacher, the lovely and talented Coleen Nimetz, which was new for me, too. AND I was staying in a haunted hotel!

The beautiful and historic Hotel Bothwell is located in downtown Sedalia, and is on National Geographic's list of the 10 most haunted hotels in America. I checked in on Halloween, and the desk clerk, Donna, was only too happy to regale me with ghost stories as she took me up to my room in the old, original elevator...

The room was lovely, with a great big bed and a bathtub that looked about as old as the hotel. Even after watching The Walking Dead and hearing the stories of the hotel ghost, I slept like a baby.

The next morning, I was up and off to work. Level One, for those of you who are not familiar with the Master Spinner Program, is fairly basic. We work with wool, starting with the fleece, sorting, washing, and prepping. Then we move on to the differences between woollen and worsted spinning. Throw in a little spinning wheel mechanics, some nature dying, and an introduction to blending with silk and there you have it.

The 16 students were from all over the US, including Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, and Texas. They were split nicely into two classes of 8, with Coleen teaching upstairs and me and my rowdy bunch in the basement.

We started out Monday morning with sorting fleeces. Time to find out what I had bought. It turned out I had ordered...

...magnificent fleeces like this Romney, supplied by Lorry McDonald at BlackWater Treasures.

My class could hardly wait to get their hands on it either...

... sorting the fleece into 6 sections and grabbing samples to use in their homework.

We also sorted a gorgeous Merino and an equally lovely Icelandic fleece. Then we did a little spindle spinning and washed some fleece to work with the next day.

Tuesday morning, we carded for worsted and woollen spinning, then started to spin...

...with everyone making a lovely, balanced skein on their very first try!

We continued on spinning through until Wednesday, when we began to prepare for our natural dye day. We tied and labelled skeins, prepared our alum mordant, and soaked a few of the dyestuffs that needed to be prepared in advance and left our skeins to do their thing while we went home to rest up.

And that was the night I was visited by the ghost. I had gone to sleep with my iPod plugged into my ears, as I do when I travel, and was sound asleep when my TV went on. There was nothing on the TV but snow, even when I changed the channel. I thought that I had maybe hit the remote in my sleep, so I turned it off, then on again. The channel I had been watching before I went to bed came on, even though I had been changing the channels on the remote, which seemed odd to me. I'm afraid that I was a little skeptical that this event had been caused by a ghost, and laughing at myself for even thinking it, I turned off the TV and plugged my earbuds back in and snuggled into bed.

The damn TV turned back on. To snow.

I sat up and said, "Thank you for visiting, but I have a big day tomorrow and need my sleep."

And the TV turned off.

Honestly.

When I told Donna the story the next morning, she told me that that was one of the ghost's favorite tricks, and that she must have liked me to turn the TV off, because she is known to keep turning it on all night.

(Insert Twilight Zone theme here...)

Ghost or no ghost, there was a natural dye day to run. Coleen and I had decided that I would run the group, with her floating and troubleshooting, so I started barking instructions and got the group going. We created pairs, one from each class, and assigned them a dye material. In all, we had 8 teams and we managed to dye and modify 32 skeins per student, for a total of 512 skeins. The colors were amazing...

...clear and bright. (Except for some rather disappointing Brazilwood liquor that had gone over) The students all worked together...

...so it hardly felt like I was working at all.

Everybody went home tired and they managed to drag back in on Friday morning for one more day of spinning and blending. And then, it was over. Just like that.

Group photos were taken. Email addresses were exchanged. There were hugs, and tears. And a new crop of Master Spinners have started their homework.

I enjoy every classs that I teach, but the enthusiasm of this particular group was absolutely infectious! I, of course, conducted myself with my ususal dignity, and commanded the respect of each and every student...

Coleen and I treated ourselves to a lovely dinner in the Hotel Bothwell, in the very restaurant where Harry Truman was convinced to run for President, and a good night's sleep before we were shuttled off to Kansas City for more adventures.

By the way, Jacey has been blogging about her experience here. She was in Coleen's class, but the two classes pretty much did the same things, and we came together for dye day. Those are her arms above, modelling the lovely colors, and here she is, respecting my authority as her teacher...

...Yeah. Just you wait. I may just be teaching you someday.

Procrastination At Its Finest

2010-12-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

So...I've sat down to blog the rest of Spinny Tour 2010 a couple of times, but I appear to have the attention span of a dyslexic bonobo on meth right now. I am finishing and sending out proposals for 2011 teaching gigs, I am wrapping up Fibre Week work for 2011 and laying groundwork for 2012, I am baking cookies and making gifts for an event that is still 2 weeks away. In short, I am living in the future in my brain, making it hard to focus in the present.

Today is the day I try and bring myself back to reality. So far, not working. I wrote all morning, then, somehow, deleted the whole thing. Nothing wrong with the post, just gone. Poof!

I thought I could remedy this situation as my cookies baked this afternoon, but that is not working out for me either. Can't sit still long enough to see a thought through to the end. Because the oven timer keeps buzzing, no doubt. I am sure it has nothing to do with the sugar rush brought on by my enthusiastic sampling. (A good cook ALWAYS tastes everything before feeding it to others. I'm just doing my job.)

Still, I feel the need to blog. So I'm stealing this meme thingy that seems to be making the rounds again amongst many of the blogs I read. It's supposed to be all revealing and stuff, but really, this is the internetz, people! I'm not about to go into really creepy detail. Besides, my Mom reads this blog.

101 Things You May Not Know About Me

1. I have a really high I.Q. Like Mensa, creepy nerd high.

2. I secretly like math.

3. And I'm pretty good at it.

4. Ditto physics.

5. Using these two disciplines, I have been working to expand time so that there are enough hours in a day to get everything done and still get a good night's sleep.

6. I am failing miserably at this task so far.

7.  I am remarkably stubborn and not easily discouraged.

8. I often fail to recognize a lost cause. (See #7)

9.  I almost never make snap decisions, even when it looks like I do.

10. I also believe that decisions have to be made. Debating your options can only go on so long. More that two shakes and it's playing with yourself, so to speak.

11. I have a very juvenile sense of humor. Talking about shafts and orifices, butts and tips, or saying puni all make me go tee-hee-hee inside.

12. I swear a lot when I spin and knit.

13. I swear more when I weave.

14. When my kids were little, I tried to teach myself not to swear because I did not want to be a bad influence. I substituted words that started with the same sound, like sugar, and mother...fathersisterbrother!

15. Some of those substitutions still slip out today, even though my kids swear more that I do now.

16. I admire my kids. A lot. They are, each in their own way, all remarkable human beings.

17. I take full credit for the fact that my kids are, each in their own way, all remarkable human beings.

18. I love being a mom, even though my kids are all adults, or close enough to count.

19.  It's harder being a mom when your kids are all adults, or close enough to count.

20. My children made me who I am today, and I know that is a better person.

21. I could still be a better person than I am.

22. I try very hard not to be judgemental, no matter how awful someone seems at first glance.

23. Having said that, I must confess that a fashion Nazi lives in my head and makes comments about people and their fashion choices.

24. I like nice clothes.

25. I chose clothes based on fibre content, comfort, style, and price. In that order. (Except for the notorious yellow sweater.)

26. I am frequently annoyed by how little most knitters and weavers know about string.

27. I often suspect that Ravelry is a tool for evil.

28. I often feel the same way about the whole interwebz.

29. I sometimes long for a simpler time, with no TV, no computers, no cell phones.

30. I know that I would not adjust well to that lifestyle.

31. I sometimes turn everything off and light some candles and spin and pretend that I have adjusted to that lifestyle.

32. I would go crazy without music.

33. Music today is not any better or worse that it was when I was a teenager. There was crappy music then and there is crappy music now. Likewise, there was awesome music then and there is awesome music now.

34. I like rap. Not hip-hop. Rap.

35. I love opera.

36. I miss grunge.

37. I consider Leonard Cohen a minor deity.

38. Christmas carols often make me cry. Not sure why, they just do.

39. I love Christmas for the lights, the pine trees, the cookies, the knitting, the coziness.

40. I hate Christmas for the pressure to socialize with people you do not see any other time of the year and the whole "perfect present" syndrome.

41. I make most of my Christmas gifts.

42. I will not go into a store or mall on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday in December.

43. I don't like stores or malls much, anyway. They are full of stuff that people don't need and usually can't afford.

44. I suspect a rabid Marxist lurks not far beneath my small-l liberal surface.

45. I believe in moderation in all things, therefore do not allow any portion of my personality to become rabid.

47. I like the path of least resistance. That doesn't always mean I take it.

48. I am basically very lazy. I will spend hours trying to find the easiest way to do something.

49. I am very patient with others, except for the idiots that always seem to get into the self-checkout line right ahead of me..

50. I am very impatient with myself.

51 I love to cook. And I'm pretty good at it.

52. Baking calms me down and focuses me. You can tell I've had a bad day if there are suddenly a lot of muffins around.

53. I don't really like muffins all that much.

54. I do like cupcakes. Cupcakes make everyday a party!

55. I think everyday should be a party. I always find some little thing to celebrate, even if it is just getting through the day alive.

56. I intend to live to 103. I do not know why I chose that age, I just did. It seems like a good age to live to.

57. I do not intend to ever grow old. I may, however, become decrepit.

58. I do not trust modern medicine.

59. I have had 6 surgeries and 11 broken bones (mostly fingers and toes, 3 of those at Fibre Week!).

60. I need to have surgery on my knee and probably would have had it by now if I trusted modern medicine.

61. I don't really trust any institutional system. It is my humble opinion that they are designed to be non-functional in order to keep the management busy and employed.

62. If I ruled the world, systems would be efficient. I cannot stand waste, duplication and redundancy.

63. Also, if I ruled the world, the people who do the actual work would get paid more than the management. Teachers, nurses, and day-care providers would be the most highly-paid professionals on the planet. Next to plumbers.

64. I appreciate plumbers more than anyone else on the planet. I have spent a lot of time with them lately.

65. I have lost any respect I may have once had for roofers, though, now that I know that they shove their garbage down people's sewer vents. And that some of them pee there, too. Ewww!

66. Witnessing bad parenting makes me sad. We all have our different styles, but whacking your kid or calling them names in a supermarket is not a style choice. It is bad parenting. Actually, it's bad parenting where ever you do it.

67. I do not believe there is ever an excuse for cruelty. It is not funny. It is not taking control. It is not cool. Be excellent to one another.

68. I also do not appreciate holier-than-thouness. Especially when it is founded in false beliefs and bad information. I'm looking at you, PETA.

69. I do not understand reality television. Why is it entertaining to watch people behave badly because they think it will make them famous?

70. I do not understand why people think being famous is a reason to behave badly. I miss positive roll models.

71. I love clothes, but I hate the way the fashion industry treats women. Any industry that consistently tells you how inadequate you are to sell you shoddy, overpriced merchandise has got a few issues to work through.

72. I am a feminist.

73. And I think that feminism has failed women. And feminists.

74. I believe that the traditional gender-based work that women have done for the last 20,000 years is what has led us to civilization, not the wars, machines and get-rich-quick schemes of our male counterparts.

75. I tend to get really worked up about this topic. So much for moderation in all things!

76. I tend to randomly change topics when things start getting intense. It is my subtle way of heading off ugliness. Most people do not consider it subtle.

77. I like to read, but have only read 1 fiction book in the past 5 years.

78. I do a crossword puzzle every day.

79. I prefer to do a cryptic crossword puzzle every day, but the Globe and Mail is so damned expensive! And hard to find.

80.  I love Mexican food. Real Mexican food.

81. I also love Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese food. Asian in general, I suppose.

82. I could live on nothing but sushi and avocados for the rest of my life.

83. I would require the occasional medium-rare steak to supplement that diet. But otherwise, I could do it.

84. I do not have a favorite color. I love them all! (Okay, maybe yellow not so much, but we could still be friends.)

85. I do not think that It's a Wonderful Life is the greatest Christmas movie ever made. I try to avoid watching it.

86. I also do not like the Harry Potter movies. The books, yes. The movies, no.

87. I loooove horror movies. Even bad ones.

88. I enjoy being a woman of a certain age and experience. I would not go back to 20 again for anything.

89. Okay, I do miss the knee I had when I was 20.

90. I will be 50 in July of 2011.

91. I intend to celebrate all year long, doing one thing I've always wanted to do each month.

92. I picked the first thing after a couple of glasses of wine: January's thing is going to see Cher perform in Vegas. She is leaving Caesar's Palace after February 5, so this may be my last chance.

93. I should never do things after a couple of glasses of wine that will cost me $3,000, but I occasionally do.

94. I am still in love with my husband. He's a nice guy, when he isn't snoring.

95. My life has not been perfect. I kind of like that.

96. I am a perfectionist, but I understand that sometimes perfect comes in unexpected forms.

97. I am grateful for the wonderful people that string has brought into my life. Some of my best friends are string people.

98. I don't really mind doing the laundry, it just pisses me off that I am the only one who ever does it around here. C'mon, people!

99. I used to be afraid of spiders, but now they are my personal totem. Hey, anybody who spins is okay with me.

100. I have a terrible memory. I honestly can't remember what I wrote for number 1...

101. ...but I have 8 dozen cookies, 2 pans of squares and a blog post to show for my afternoon!

Spinny Tour 2010: Part 3, The Faces of SOAR

2010-11-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

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...

Spinny Tour 2010 Part Two: SOAR, The Retreat

2010-11-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

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..."

Spinny Tour 2010 Part One: SOAR, The Beginning

2010-11-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

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...

Color My World

2010-10-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

I may have mentioned before that I love fall.

This particular fall has been very busy, with several little side projects popping up unexpectedly, along with the usual business of getting Julia back to school. Then we had Brendan moving out to Vancouver, which involved a father and a U-Haul trailer, leaving me holding down the fort. The seasonal flurry of emails about next years Fibre Week tied me to the computer, and the inevitable back-to-school flu really nailed me this year, eating up 10 days of my life.

And this fall will get busier in a week. I will be off to SOAR and immersed in the colors of Northern Wisconsin, the colors of Katherine Alexander's energized twist creations, the colors of Sara Lamb and Deb Menz's painted yarn workshop, the colors of Demetrio Bautists Lauzo's cochineal session, the colors of the marketplace...you get the picture.

Color has been popping up everywhere in my life these days. There are the ever-spectacular fall colors of Northern Alberta...

...which are now fading into mellow beiges and grays in preparation for winter.

There are the colors of my new fall wardrobe, rich with plums and teals. There are the colors of indigo vats...

...one product of which is the cotton yarn that I am now obsessively knitting to finish before I leave for SOAR. The drapey, sleeveless top is coming together brilliantly, and I spend almost as much time adoring the glorious blue and the sheen of well-spun cotton as I do knitting.

There are the colors and patterns of the cochineal-dyed Shibori scarves that I made as a demo at a dying workshop during Alberta Arts Days...

...that have been hanging around the living room, waiting to be pressed. (No, I do not iron in the living room. That's just where the scarves have been hanging. So I could admire them. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

But what triggered this post was the odd similarity in colors that I have noticed in my latest dye project and the world around me.

You see, I'm prepping to teach a Master Spinner Level 1 class in Sedalia, MO immediately after SOAR. Level 1 is pretty nitty-gritty. Basic drafting, parts of your spinning wheel, how to prep fibre, understanding fleeces. Lots of great stuff and some steep learning, but mostly a lot of basic, white fibre. A few instructors like to liven things up with some color, and I'm one of them. So, being the clever bunny I am, I decided to rainbow dye an interesting fleece and take it along for the class to play with.

I washed half of a BFL/Merino cross fleece from Jodi McLeod, then put it in just enough water to barely cover it. I sprinkled dye powder over the fleece, putting different colors in different areas. Then I heated the pot up, put the lid on and let it simmer for half an hour. Lid off, let the water cool, and voila!

Pictures were taken of the stunning results. Pictures were uploaded to computer. Pictures were viewed. And lo and behold, right above each picture of the dyed fibre was a scenic fall photo that matched. First, there was this...

Then, right beside that was this...

I made no conscious choices to achieve these colors. (In fact, the golds and coppers were achieved by accident when I sprinkled from the magenta dye tin instead of the fuchsia one by mistake.) Clearly, I am so attuned with my world that I can subconsciously conjure the colors in a dyepot.

Or maybe it was just an awesome coincidence.

Serendipity. Glorious serendipity.

I love it when I look clever by accident.

Wonder Woman (and My Tragic Realization That I Will Never Be Her)

2010-09-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

Fall is upon us, and I sit here wondering where the last couple of months went. I did a lot. But there seems to be a long list of things I intended to do and didn't. And another list of things that I should get to, but haven't. And, worst of all, the list of things that I missed doing, causing some major crisis or another.

What happened?

I am a high energy person. I do lots. I got 1200 yards of cotton spun this past month.

I have indigo dyed it.

It is now transforming itself into a lovely knitted top.

I have taught workshops, worked on Fibre Weeks 2010 and 2011. I have raised, tended, and harvested a garden. I have cooked meals, cleaned my house, done the laundry, paid the bills. I have done everything but solve world hunger (though there are 8 apple pies in the freezer that may be a good start!) But, I have come to the tragic realization that I will never be Wonder Woman.

I'm not talking about the comic-book character, who is a princess of an Amazon tribe who can, among other things, move at superhuman speed, commune with animals, and coerce the truth out of villains with her Lasso of Truth. You, know, the tall woman in the red, white, and blue bustier. Truth be told, I share many of that Wonder Woman's talents. And, possibly, some of her wardrobe.

I'm talking about that Wonder Woman of the 21st century. The woman who holds down an amazing job, raises ideal children who all get straight A's, keeps an immaculate home, and always has a home-cooked, gourmet meal waiting for her tired husband when he gets home from the office. She is the woman who is the president of the school parent association, leading the bake-sale and hot lunch committees to heights only ever previously imagined. She is the woman who throws themed birthday parties for her kids, complete with entertainment and appropriately cutsie loot bags. She is the woman who serves on the boards of local charities, and attends every meeting. She is the woman who is always immaculately dressed, with her hair and make-up perfect.

Oh. Wait. I was that woman! (Except for the amazing job--I was a stay at home mom, which was amazing for me, but no so amazing to the rest of the world.) The operative word here, however, is was.

But something has happened. I am no longer interested in or have time to get involved in the fascinating details of hot lunch budgets and next month's menu choices. My kids are well beyond the themed birthday parties--at least I think they are... Anyway. I've missed so many charity meetings that I have felt compelled to resign from boards. Though, I am still a pretty snappy dresser.

I tell myself that I have chosen to slow down, to focus on this little obsession with string and not clutter my life with busywork. And, for the most part, that is true. I would rather be making string. But life has to be taken care of. Food must still be procured, and sooner or later, the Mount Kilimanjaro of laundry must be scaled. Bills need to be paid. Eager learners must be introduced to the mysteries of twist. Adventures must be...advented?

However, last week. it all came to a grinding halt. I was felled by a lowly virus. And when I say felled, I mean knocked flat on my a**. In bed, wishing I could die, for 5 days. Incapable of brushing my teeth. Felled.

I did NOTHING. Okay, maybe a little knitting. But, otherwise, nothing.

And something amazing happened. THE WORLD CONTINUED TO TURN. The sun rose and set. People got up, went to work, came home.  My input was not required for the normal daily functions of over 6 billion people.

I cannot begin to describe how liberating this discovery was.  I could just lay there and rest and recover and the world went on.

Oh, my inbox is something fierce this week, and it will take me forever to catch up on emails. Mount Kilimanjaro has reached new heights.  We have been eating whatever was in the back of the fridge for 3 days now, and the pickins is getting mighty slim. But, I have seen the light.

Even Wonder Woman took a day off, every now and then.

So, if things slip by every now and then, let them slip.

I may never be the Wonder Woman that we are all being brainwashed to believe we must be, but I will be the wondrous woman that I am. And when I need to say no, I will know that the world will continue to turn. Sometimes, I need to sit and do nothing.

Or sit and make string, Yeah, that's better.

And that other stuff?

I'll get around to it.

Five Short Stories About August

2010-09-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here we are in September already! I've been home from the latest round of travels for 4 or 5 days now, and I'm just starting to get my feet under me. The two weeks on the road were go-go-go, and I'm exhausted. Not that that will stop me for long!

Here's some of what happened...

1. The Boyd family gathered to say goodbye to our patriarch, Bill. The three siblings, Steve, Mike, and Pat, interred their father's ashes, then we went back to Bill's house for a day of food, talk, and play. The day was remarkably joyous, with family reconnecting, new discoveries and a whole lot of goofing around.

This is the first time that my three babies and all of their cousins have been together since a family wedding nearly 2 years ago, and it was wonderful. The phrase "I'M IN MY ROCKETSHIP" will live on in infamy.

2. We had flown Lexi up to Edmonton to join us for the interment and family celebration, and since we were driving out to Gibsons that weekend, we all crammed into our Crown Vic and headed westward. Every family car trip we've ever taken has been more of an adventure than anticipated, so, by comparison, this one was pretty tame. True, cramming 3 adults, or near-adults, into a back seat for 1500 kilometers is no picnic, but everyone held together pretty well.

Of course, we took plenty of breaks to stretch long legs. And play. It makes me rather happy to see that my kids haven't lost their sense of play, and that they have finally learned to play nice with each other.

After all, you know what they say about the family that plays together!

3. When we got to Vancouver, I did something silly. Okay, sillier than usual. I got a tattoo.

Miss Arabella Spider is now permanently spinning her spiral on my left shoulder. I've been planning this tattoo for months, and finally got to the Eastside Tattoo Parlor, where the magnificent Jessica Pare etched this beauty into my arm. Spiders mean a lot to me, for a lot of reasons, and I'm pretty happy to look at my shoulder and see one spinning away.

4. After a couple of hot, sunny days in Vancouver, we headed up to Gibsons for the Gibson's Landing Fibre Arts Festival. I have to admit that I absolutely adore the community and the festival, and this visit did nothing to change that feeling. I taught, I shopped, I visited with friends old and new. I ate my annual crab at Smitty's Oyster House. I may or may not have "liberated" a yarn bomb into the possession of a street musician...

...though there is no proof that I actually removed anything.

The Festival is taking a year off next year due to manpower (or should I say womanpower?) problems. It's a tough job to put on a festival of this calibre, and some of the board is getting a little weary. They plan to revisit the way things are done and recruit some fresh blood and be back again in 2012, and I sincerely hope that they do. This festival is a wonderful thing for all fibre folk, and it would be a terrible shame to have to lose it. Send your good vibes their way!

5. Back to Edmonton. Lady Gaga. There are no words to describe this concert. Part theatre, part concert (complete with a massive live band, and a harpist!), part motivational speech, part modern art. Brilliant! And, may I just say, that regardless of what you think of her music or her wardrobe, that lady can SING. Holy cats!

The best part of the whole evening for me, though, was the crowd. There were the obvious fans, with their Gaga looks going on. And then there were the seniors. There were more people in their 60's and 70's there than I have ever seen at a concert. And a lot of them were up on their feet, dancing with their "paws up". Awesome!

So, now I'm home. We picked up some fresh fruit and veggies on the way home, and I spent the weekend pickling and preserving. The larder has been stocked. New purchases have been stashed. Miss Julia is settling into school. It's time to spin. And plan for the next trip...

Goodbye, Bill

2010-08-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

Do not cry because it's over, smile because it was. ~ Dr. Suess

My father-in-law, Bill Boyd, died peacefully in his sleep on July 25, 2010.

This is the second father I have lost in three years, with my own father dying back in 2007. Now, Bill was not my "dad". I do not have childhood memories of piggy-back rides and long days fishing on the lake with him. But he was a father-figure to me, nonetheless.

He welcomed me into his family, and treated me equally with his own children, the other in-laws, grandkids and great-grandkids. If Bill had a family favorite, he never let it show. He was there with advice, whether I wanted it or not. And he was there with help, whether I asked for it or not. He put up with me as patiently as he did his own children, and if he thought I was doing something stupid, he did not hesitate to tell me so. And he let me do it anyway.

Bill was a humble, quiet man. But when he found something he liked, whether it was a detergent, a TV show, a restaurant, or a person, he was fiercely loyal. Never to the point of fanatacism, just firmly loyal and always there to support.

Bill loved a good debate, especially about things political. He was very active in politics at the local, provincial, and federal levels. And he was pretty astute. Some of my favorite memories of Bill are those days when we wasted a morning debating a political issue over cups of cooling tea. Even when I agreed with him, I liked to play Devil's Advocate and argue the opposite side, just to see his responses. And they were usually quite well-thought-out and concise. When I didn't agree with him, we could go on for hours, usually only ending when he walked away, shaking his head at my foolishness.

But my favorite thing about Bill, and the thing I will miss the most, was his interest in the fibre arts. He never knit a stitch or twisted a fibre, but he was interested in what I did because it was something different. He went to fibre arts displays with me, not really knowing what it was that he was looking at, but finding it interesting in its beauty and variety. He would ask me questions, listen patiently to my long, meandering answers, then ask another question. He wore handspun caps and mittens with pride and joy. One of the highlights of my annual trip to Fibre Week was to stop and share a coffee with Bill on the way home and tell him the tales of drama and intrigue within the fibre world. If nothing else, he loved a good yarn (pun very much intended!), and my adventures in fibre gave him plenty of those.

The family will be gathering to lay his ashes to rest this weekend. We will say our goodbyes, but I wanted to just say one, all on my own.

I will miss him. A lot. Goodbye, Bill.

Mea Culpa

2010-07-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

I must confess. I have committed a grave act that haunts me day and night. I bought this sweater...

...which looks the picture of innocence. But don't let looks deceive you. This little sweater is...THE DIVIL!

You see, I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint. I know that I am only one little person, but if I can reduce my dependency on petrochemicals and teach others to follow my example, I will feel that I have made an impact. So, to that end, I have begun to walk to the grocery store and the post office, I have eliminated single-use plastic shopping bags from the household, I carry my own cup to Starbucks, I buy bulk groceries when I can to reduce the packaging waste...I do what I can. But my big, soap-box rant-inspiring,
save-the planet action is to avoid clothing and textile products made from petrochemicals.

You know their names. Polyester. Nylon. Acrylic. Polyamide. And the dreaded poly-vinyl-chloride.

Oh, they've gotten sneaky, these petro-textiles. They hide behind names like "micro-fibre". Spandex has snuck into the blue jean supply chain. Petrochemicals are now being used to coat natural fibres, like wool -and cotton, to make them "shrink-proof" and "wrinkle-free".

But I see them out there, lurking. I read the labels, and I put that super-sexy little top back on the rack because I don't trust those sneaky petro-textiles one bit.

Now, I live in an petrochemical community. Fort McMurray is the home of the Oilsands, and we have a lot of debate about the rightness and the wrongness of the methods of extraction used around here, and the environmental impact. Greenpeace shows up every now and then and rails about the dangers of "dirty oil". All those activists, dressed in their acrylic fleece vests and Spandex pants, rappelling down nylon ropes to hang a vinyl banner protesting the extraction of oil from the ground were clearly not paying much attention to what that oil is being used for.

And nothing burns my biscuits like the animal-rights activists who protest the shearing of sheep by telling us that there are plenty of man-made alternatives, like polar-fleece and polyester, that do no harm to animals. Tell that to the dolphins and sea turtles of the Gulf Coast.

All this talk about the dangers of oil extraction, and the ever-looming threat of peak oil, and we are wearing the stuff on our backs. We are sitting on it. We are walking on it. We are carrying our groceries home in it. We are wrapping our newborn babies in it. Oil is everywhere. (It really is! Check out this list, which is actually pretty entertaining, to find out some of the other places petroleum products are used. My favorite is pole vaulter poles!)

So, instead of wasting it on clothing, that can be made out of renewable resources like linen, cotton, wool, and even wood pulp, let's save our oil for driving our vehicles and heating our homes. The supply will last longer, and development could slow down and take the time to be kinder to our environment.

Whew! Soapbox rant over. Now back to the sweater.

I will preface the conclusion of my tale with the defense that I was in a hurry, on my way to meet someone. I saw the sweater in a store window and popped in to look at it. It had a lovely hand, crisp, yet soft, like cotton. And it was on sale for a price I couldn't resist. So, I tossed it on the cashier's counter, then popped it into my re-usable cloth shopping bag and dashed to my appointment. As the evening cooled, I pulled out my lovely new sweater and wore it. Then I wore it the next day, loving the cuddly feel and the warmth it provided. The sweater wound up in the laundry basket eventually, where it languished until yesterday. As I sorted my laundry, I debated whether to put the sweater into a regular wash or the gentle cycle. With trepidation, I checked the tag to see if there were any sneaky petro-fibres lurking that might require particular care. And that is when the bombshell hit.

The label read 100% ACRYLIC!

I hang my head in shame.

But I'll probably wear the sweater anyway. 'Cuz it's a really nice sweater.

Mea Culpa.

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

2010-07-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

That's what's been going on round here for the past few days. Oh, stuff has been happening...laundry, food shopping, weeding, dog walking,..you know, stuff. I've been slowly redecorating our bedroom, which is long overdue, but that is a work-in-progress. Steve and I celebrated our 28th anniversary last week We have been to Edmonton a couple of times. But really nothing blog-worthy.

I seem to be unable to blog regularly for two really good reasons either nothing is going on, like now, or too much is going on. My life just seems to be like that. I suppose I should work on my pacing.

So, this afternoon, here I sit on my patio, in the sun, blogging about having nothing to blog about.

Of course, I am spinning...

...this yummy silk blend, handpainted by Barb at Luscious Luxuries. The beverage in the picture is Ribena and soda, cool and refreshing on a day like today.

And I'm watching my garden grow...

...as lazy bumble bees and butterflies poke around the blossoms on the scarlet runner beans and rather cheeky little finches dart in and out of my cat-infested yard.

Even Molly seems to have caught the summer ennui...

...watching the birds from a little fort she has built from an up-ended garden gnome under a spruce tree.

I know things are going to get busy around here really soon. They always do. But, for now, I'm just going to enjoy doing a whole lotta nothin'.

To Olds and Back Again

2010-07-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know Fibre Week ended over a week ago. But you should know by now that you are dealing with a delinquent blogger. And a lot is going on, besides the making of string.

Like my new website http://www.michelleboydspins.com/. Who knew writing lines and lines of code and learning FTP protocols would take so much time. But there you have it. Good-bye, June. Go ahead and check it out, if you haven't already.

And then there is the garden. This time of year brings out the horticulturalist in me. I plant pretty flowers, and though I don't specifically grow a dyer's garden, I do harvest a lot of nifty colors all summer long. And veggies. My childhood was filled with fresh garden veggies all summer long. I had decided to turn the wee plot in my back yard into a veggie garden with peas, onions, beets, beans, corn and carrots all carefully lined up in pretty rows. My cats, however, had different ideas, and now I spend a lot of time discovering new plants where other plants should have been. And weeding.

And then, of course, there was Fibre Week. Every year, I enjoy this event more and more. And this year topped them all. Not only was there fabulous enrollment in the workshop program (which makes me, as the coordinator, look pretty good!), but a record number of entries in the fleece shows, enormous community support, and fabulous weather. Who could ask for anything more? (Okay, edible food in the cafeteria would be nice...)

My favorite thing about Fibre Week, however, is the people. Some of my very best friends in the world are people that I have met at Fibre Week. And I keep meeting more and more wonderful people and adding to that list of friends. People who play with fibre are the very best kind of people. They are kind and generous and adventurous and hilarious. They are smart and loyal and just seem to be happier than the rest of humanity.

We gathered for classes...

...like this one with Sharon Costello. Look a them working away!
We gathered for speakers and for the fashion show...

...hosted by yours truly, which is why there are no photos of the awesome garments we saw!

We gathered for potluck dinner...

We welcomed new spinners...

And new-to-fibre-arts-in-general folk...

I managed to find myself room mates with three of the most remarkable fibre folk I have yet to meet: Joan Ruane, Sharon Costello, and Cat Bordhi. Talk about a nexus of fibre brilliance. All three of these women are remarkable human beings and very gifted in their fields, and I got to sit in and converse with them each evening. Sheer bliss!

Then, I got to meet the Master Spinner Level 3 Class of 2010. I could not have had a better group if I had gone out and handpicked from the entire spinning population. Smart, funny, and fearless, these nine women soaked up all that I had to give and came back for more each day. And one of them actually said that she loved tpi and would never spin without it again! My work here is done...

...MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay, there was a little bit of stash enhancement done, too. Seriously, where else are you going to find cashmere, and cashmere blended with alpaca, and quiviut blended with bison, merino, and silk? Oh, and a wee bit of handpainted merino yarn from Ellie at Rabbitworks Fibre Studio. And a little handpainted silk. And that Viking Santa spindle that I picked up at the Silent Auction. And the Dukhobor flax tools. And...you get the picture...

Yep, that's worth a thousand words. And several hundred dollars. It's a darn good thing they pay me to go to Fibre Week, but, apparently, most of that money gets left there!

So, all in all, I had a wonderful time, came home broke and brain-dead, then turned around and went back to Edmonton for medical appointments. This weekend is finally a chance to try and recover.

And make some string.

Goodness knows, there's some fibre around!

P.S I am scheduled to teach a class in spinning flax out at Gibson's Landing, but it is in danger of cancellation due to low enrollment. If you will be in the vicinity of the Sunshine Coast around August 21 and want to find out how fun and friendly flax can be, go to http://www.gibsonslandingfibrearts.com and register a.s.a.p.!

Bliss

2010-06-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

bliss (blis) n. 1. great happiness, perfect joy

Not so very long ago, I was a stay-at-home mom with small children and a husband who worked weird hours. Like many women in that position, I watched a lot of Oprah. There was one hour set aside in every day to sit and knit and listen to somebody talk about something, anything, besides Barney The Purple Dinosaur. And Oprah kept telling me to "find my bliss."

Well, at the time, my bliss consisted of finding two matching socks in a load of laundry, or someone actually flushing the toilet after they used it, so I really couldn't figure out what Oprah was talking about. But it sounded good.

As my children got a little older and started school, I had more free time to knit. Then I learned to spin.

At first, it was hard. I couldn't make the spindle do what I wanted it to do and my yarns were over-twisted and lumpy. But I really wanted to do this, so I kept practicing, and pretty soon I was making a smooth yarn that was actually usable. Then I started the Master Spinner Program and found out how much I didn't know. Back to square one, with lots of practice and lots of frustration. If someone had asked me then if I had found my bliss, I probably would have punched them in the throat.

I managed to struggle through the hundreds of sample skeins that we were assigned at school, and I must admit, there was little to no joy in spinning for me during those years. I fought the idea of specific tpi for a specific use. I hated counting those treadles! It was Serious Work. No fun at all. Joyless. But, I was determined to be a Master. I made specific skeins out of specific fibres, whether I wanted to or not. When I wasn't making assigned skeins, I was practicing my drafting. I took workshops whenever I could afford to. I worked and worked to be a good spinner.

Then one day, I sat down to spin. And I was a good spinner. I still had a couple of levels left in the Master Spinner Program, but I knew what I was doing and I could handle it. I really enjoyed spinning to a specific tpi for my in-depth study. I really enjoyed spinning. Period.

Then I broke my wrist. I was in and out of casts for the larger part of a year after that, and I learned something. Spinning was the thing that made me complete. I have been blessed with a wonderful husband, three beautiful, clever, healthy children, a home, and a good life. But spinning was mine alone. The thing that made me, well, feel like me.

I had found my bliss.

Since then, I have been teaching spinning on a fairly regular basis. This gives me an excuse to continue spinning, but it also gives me an opportunity to share that thing that brings me such joy with others. I have seen others struggle the way I did, and I can offer a way around that thing that is blocking their bliss.

I am a member of a far-flung community of string lovers. We gather every now and then, such as at the HWSDA's conference in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago. When we gather, the bliss is multiplied. It's good to know that playing with string affects others as deeply as it does me. And sometimes, there is an unexpected bonus. Like these two lovely young people...

Laura and Daniel were not members of the HWSDA. They attend the college where the conference was held, but Laura has always loved the idea of spinning. Her mother was a spinner and Laura did not appreciate it until she moved away from home, and was asking a lot of questions. So we sat her down and gave her a quick lesson. Daniel wanted to try, too, so we got him going on another wheel. Soon, both of them where spinning a fair-to-middlin' yarn. Look at the expressions on their faces. Pure joy at their accomplishments.

Bliss.

I will also confess that a glass or two of wine has been known to contribute to my bliss. Which leads me to this photo from that conference...

...wine under lock and key. In case your computer's resolution is preventing you from reading the sign, here is a close-up.

Bwahahahaha! Apparently. they know us too well! And they are taunting us! "Look inside", indeed!

So, now I'm preparing for another Fibre Week. I will be teaching Level 3 once again, inflicting tpi stress upon another class. I try very hard to remember my own anxiety about those very specific skeins when I teach this level. And I remember the day I said "ah-ha!" and it ceased to be work. And I try to share how the struggle to learn proper technical skills actually set me free to spin. Spinning the right yarn for the right job ceased to be Serious Work.

And became Bliss.

Time

2010-05-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

Have you noticed that time is diminishing, or am I imagining things?

Nope, I'm pretty sure time is getting smaller.

I mean, I thought I had a whole month to spend spinning and prepping for workshops. I thought I'd get some knitting done, and keep up with the old blog. I had great plans to do some baking, and stay on top of the laundry. There was going to be time to hang out with friends, and have date nights with Steve.

My math isn't great, but I always thought that there were about 30 days or so each month, give or take February. There are 24 hours in each of those days, or so we've been told. That's 720 hours a month. Even if you account for sleeping, which is something I haven't been doing lately, there should still be 480 usable hours every day. That's 28,800 minutes. That's a lot of time.

So where did it all go?

In 28,800 minutes, I should have spun miles of singles. I should have knit three sweaters and two pairs of socks. I should have blogged at least once a week. There should be stacks of pristine laundry everywhere, and freshly-baked muffins galore. Friends and spouses should have been seen, and coffee consumed in their presence.

Instead, I have just finished plying the Merino/silk that has been languishing on the wheel since before Christmas. And I have half a sock knitted. That's about what I've got to show for the last 3 weeks.

And I do not understand this, because I have been in the studio most days. Working at the wheel. Knitting,

Oh sure, there was the day I dug compost into the garden. But the two achey days afterwards were spent spinning. For hours. And yet, so little to show for the time spent. Where did all that time go, if not into mile after productive mile of string?

So, the only thing I can come up with is that time is shrinking. A minute just isn't what it used to be.

That't my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Five Short Stories About Last Week

2010-05-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

I once again find myself a delinquent blogger. And for no good reason, except to say that the past week or so have been...well, odd. Many things have happened, some good, some not good, most of them just time-consuming. Just things that happen. Here are a few of them.

1. Insomnia
Ever since coming home from Vancouver, I have had trouble turning off the brain at bedtime. So many great ideas, yarns and patterns, new techniques. The logical solution seemed to be to go with the flow, which meant that I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning spinning, knitting, sketching or whatever else struck my fancy. I made some nice sock yarn...

...from some lovely Superwash Merino/nylon blend fibre from River's Edge Fiber Arts. I picked the fibre up while I was in Arizona and just decided that I had to spin it one night. The colors are amazing and they works well together to create a wide stripe pattern, but there is not as much yardage as I might have hoped. It is my standard 3-ply sock yarn, about 18 wpi, but there are two skeins of only 125 yard each out of the 4 oz. of fibre. Yet to be knitted up, but I'm thinking it's time to explore a toe-up technique.

There are other yarns, and other projects, most of which are in some state of semi-completion. Where they will probably stay for a while, because the inevitable result of 3 weeks of 4 hours of sleep is, yes, you guessed it, exhaustion.

Naps and early bedtimes have been the order of the day for the past few days now. Hopefully, balance will be achieved soon and life can settle down.

2. More Yarn
There has been other spinning going on, and two major projects started back in the January lull are caught up. Or, at least, one is done. The other is still waiting for plying.

But I can show off the finished one...

...my Monet-inspired cable. Spun woolen and fine, plied, then cabled to make the most of the color play in the fabulous Romney/Merino blend rovings from Lynne Anderson and West Coast Fibres. The finished yarn came out at about 3 tpi and 12 wpi. I loved it so much that, as soon as the skeins were dry, I was knitting. I am free-styling a garter stitch vest/sweater, choosing the next step as I go. A couple of those insomnia evenings were spent working out the front button placket, and the obsessive knitting continues...

3. Plumbing Disaster 2: The Revenge of the Airlock
You may recall that we had a plumbing crisis back in January. It was not a happy time, and a great deal of time and money was consumed in solving this crisis and restoring functioning toilets to the Old Homestead. And, of course, there was the little problem of the rain of sewage into the downstairs bathroom. Pipes were plumbed, vents were cleared, toilets resealed, and all was well.

Until last Tuesday. When the bubbles began in the toilet again. Plumbers were called, and as we waited, the rain of sewage began to fall. Nothing was found to be wrong, but the seal on the upstairs toilet had let loose again, resulting in the removal of said toilet and the resealing of the pipe. Steve did this job, and may I just state here that there is something about plumbing that turns my relatively calm, intelligent, and gentle husband into some sort of surly, cursing, rampaging member of the rhinoceros family. It was not pretty.

So, toilet back in place and everything clear. Flush. Glub, glub, glub. The bubbles are back. The call is in to the condo management company to get somebody out here to check our sewer connection, but they don't seem to think it is a priority. Or, more likely, they know that there are expensive major repairs to the sewer line in our row of townhouses and are trying to avoid them.

Care and caution are being exercised by all who use toilets in the household until somebody, somewhere, decides what to do.

4. Brace Yourself!
Or, more appropriately, I have braced myself. I finally got to see the doctor I had asked to see five years ago when I first fell and hurt my knee. He took one look at it and told me exactly what I had known all along. There is torn cartilage and a damaged ligament destabilizing the knee, which is aggravating otherwise mild arthritis and making me a cranky old cripple before my time. There will be surgery to repair the cartilage and rebuild the ligament in my not-too-distant future, but a fresh MRI is needed first. Even with a priority status, that means a 3-6 week wait.

So, what to do in the meantime? Wear a brace. But not just any brace. No, siree...

...the Uber-Brace! Yes, 11 inches of Neoprene, Velcro and steel, designed to keep that knee bending in the one direction that it's supposed to. And after only 48 hours of wearing this baby, I am walking the dog, going up and down stairs, and taking only half the painkillers I previously took to sleep at night!

I'm not too sure how I will feel about having this Behemoth on my leg when it gets to be a little warmer around here, but I'm so happy to be able to climb stairs and get up from a chair without a grunt of pain that I will just have to find a way to adjust.

5. Goats Across Canada
If you can find a copy of the March/April issue of Goats Across Canada magazine, check out Page 26. I will gladly autograph your copy!

So that's just a little sampler of the stuff that has been going on around here. There has been gardening, and snow, and a spin-in, and baking, and nights out, and spinning, and knitting. There have been trips to the grocery store, visits to Canadian Tire, and appointments galore. There has been life. Just life.

I'm So Excited...

2010-04-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

...and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.

Yep, The Pointer Sisters really summed up my mood today. It's been a really exciting week around here. Really!

On Sunday, I hosted the first Wood Buffalo Spin-in for the growing local spinning community. It was such a hit that we're doing it again in about 10 days. There were 5 spinners in my tiny little living room, spinning and talking and eating goodies and just having fun. I'm so excited that this group has gathered together, and that we will be doing it again soon. (Though, sadly, Robin has left us to go home to Australia. I'm sure she will still spin with us in spirit!)

On Tuesday, the excitement was in the form of a nasty injury. I broke my toe, tripping over the track on the sliding patio door. I was trying to take my spinning wheel out onto the patio to take advantage of the fabulous weather, and, bang! My poor wee toe never saw it coming. Things are healing up, with my toe a spectacular variagated range of purples and greens. It only hurts when I dance.

Which is a bit of a problem, because I have been breaking into spontaneous dance for the last 20 hours or so. Ever since I received an email from Amy Clarke Moore, editor of Spin-Off Magazine.

Yours truly has been awarded a FULL SCHOLARSHIP to attend SOAR 2010!

Big excitement, indeed.

So that high-pitched squealing noise you have been hearing since last night is just me, realizing that I AM GOING TO SOAR. Then bursting into dance. Then screaming because my toe hurts. And then squealing again, because sore toe or not, I AM GOING TO SOAR!

Sooner or later, I'm sure I will settle down. Probably when I realize that I can only take
one of the amazing workshops. I have no idea how I will choose. Putting each workshop description on a wall and throwing darts seems too blunt. Reading the correct workshop in chicken entrails seems a little, well, icky. Logically working through the list to choose something that will be interesting and challenging for me seems like a plan, but logic escapes me right now.

I'm so excited....I'M GOING TO SOAR!

Why Wash?

2010-04-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

So, I'm home and settled in and getting caught up on my emails. I found this wonderful question on one of the lists I follow, and I just couldn't resist the opportunity:

Hi everyone - I have been thinking about washing yarn and setting twist, etc.. When you spin a yarn you always wash it to set the twist and also to get out any yuckies that are left. Then when you knit with this yarn, you wash or wet the piece again before you block. Could one save a step and just spin, knit and then wash? Has anybody done any experiments with this to see if there is a difference doing it one way or the other?

Well, it just so happens that I have done experiments, and here is what I have discovered:

YOU MUST ALWAYS WASH AND SET YOUR TWIST BEFORE KNITTING OR WEAVING WITH YOUR HANDSPUN YARNS.

Okay, so I'm shouting. But with good reason. You see, when we spin, no matter what fibre we use, we are stretching the fibre out to it's full length (drafting), and then holding it under tension as we force twist into those stretched fibres. The stretched and twisted fibres are then pulled onto a bobbin, maintaining the tension. As long as we keep those fibres under tension, they will hold the twist exactly where we put it during the spinning. The fibres wills stay elongated, the twist will lay dormant under the stress of the tension. All is good, right?

Well, as long as that yarn stays on that bobbin, yes. Sitting there on the bobbin, that yarn looks all smooth and balanced and pretty. But looks can be deceiving. That yarn is under tension. It is not ready to relax and cooperate just yet. When you wind the yarn off onto your niddy-noddy to make a skein, you see what happens to that yarn.

A well-spun, balanced yarn should come off of the bobbin with some residual twist. If your yarn comes off and makes a perfect U, your yarn is actually underplied. You want to see this yarn twist up like this.

Why? Because, in order to have enough ply to hold together in the working and create a balanced, smooth fabric, you have to ply your yarns with 2/3 the amount of the twist that you put into your singles. If you ply at 1/2 the singles twist, you will find that your yarn is unstable and that your fabric will seem uneven and may even skew. Trust me, I've tried it.

"Okay, Ms Smarty-Pants," you say. "I don't wind my yarns off onto a niddy-noddy, I use a ball winder."

That's fine, but what you're doing when you do that is maintaining the tension that the yarn has been held under on the bobbin. Until you start pulling that yarn out and knitting or warping with it. Then all that tension lets go and the twist runs rampant. Little pigtails start snarling the yarn, and, invariably the yarn snarls inside the ball, creating a tangle. Who needs that?

When you put yarn in hot water, something wonderful happens. The individual fibres relax and try to return to their natural state, releasing the tension that we have tugged into them. They fall into a softer arrangement, and create more space in the sideways direction. The twist then finds more space to spread itself out and no longer tries to pull those fibres in it's own direction. Balance is achieved.

Now your yarns have that perfect U.

I did this little demonstration with two different fibres, treating them both exactly the same after they came off the bobbin. The orange skein is Corriedale top (wool) and the purple skein is silk. As you can see, the setting of the twist is vital for balancing the yarns in both fibres, but far more so for the silk.

When you go to work with the yarns, washed or unwashed, you will see a dramatic difference in the way that yarn feels and acts.

Let's look at the knitted samples before blocking. The sample on the left is the unwashed yarn. You can't see it in the photo, but it had a harsher hand and tended to snarl as I knit with it. You can see, however, that the work curled and skewed as I knit it.

This effect was far more dramatic in the silk sample, which, let me tell you, was not fun to knit in the unwashed version!

Another interesting thing happens when you set your twist in hot water. The wool sample came off the bobbin measuring 3 tpi and 14 wpi. After setting, the same sample measured 4 tpi and 12 wpi. The silk samples came off the bobbin at 6 tpi and 32 wpi, and was 9 tpi and 30 wpi after setting. Ummm, the unwashed yarns are very different from the washed yarns. Very. And this will impact what they do in the fabric.

For one thing, the gauge of you knitting will be different. The wool knitted up at 8 stitches/inch when it was unwashed, but 6 stitches/inch when washed. The silk, 12 stitches/inch unwashed, 10 stitches/inch washed.

If you knit, you know what a huge difference 2 stitches per inch makes in the size of your garment. If you don't knit, take my word for it--it's not good.

After blocking, you can really see the impact of washing and setting. The top sample is the unwashed, the bottom is washed and set yarn. I rest my case.

You will also notice that the unwashed samples are more open and less dense. If I had a better camera, you would also be able to see that the stitches are not as tidy in the unwashed samples, showing uneven twist throughout and creating that notorious "bar" that happens when yarns with unbalanced twist are knitted. And then there is the skewing...

So, does that answer the question?

Good.

Some More Stuff That Happened

2010-04-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

March is over, we are well into April, and my life is slowly regaining some semblance of what passes for normal around here...

What just happened?

I vaguely remember a trip to Arizona, then a blur of activity. Perhaps some sort of hypnosis will bring back memories...

Wait! There was a trip to Edmonton. Medical appointments and shopping. Many articles of clothing were purchased. That would explain the bulge in my suitcase! Hmmm...

Oh! Then there was a frantic week of building and installing a set for Thickwood Theatrix's production of Honk! Jr. Not a lot of sleep, and much crawling around on the floor with a paintbrush--no wonder my mind supressed the memory! But the set turned out wonderfully, and the production was, as always, fabulous.

Fifty-four grade 4 to 8 students in an all-quacking, all-dancing spectacular. Every year I am amazed by the dedication of the teachers who drive this production, and by the talent and determination of the students. Valerie Gondek, Angela Fenton, Patti Zeglen, and the administration, staff and students of Thickwood Heights School, take a bow!

Then there is a blank spot, until I find myself on a bus two days later. I think I may have actually slept. I'm not sure. There may have been some packing, because...

Suddenly, I was in Fort St. John, BC! A seminar on recycling fibres, and two days of sock spinning with a wonderful, enthusiastic group of spinners...

...who look like they had a good time. As always, there was much spinning and exploration. I talked myself hoarse, again. There was good food, and wine, and laughter. And marvelous samples all around. I sincerely hope the participants did have much fun as I did, because I had a great time!

So, weary and silent, I made my way southward to spend some time in Vancouver with the Miss Lexi, Miss Julia, Steve, and my father-in-law. I arrived first and had a lovely day with Miss Lexi, then the rest of the gang flew out to join us for the Easter long weekend. Once again, much food and wine was consumed, and there were hijinks galore. A few of the highlights...

...include the big storm that blew in on Good Friday while we were in Stanley Park. High winds and rain pummelled the park and the city, and we went walking on the seawall. For about 3 minutes. While we were warming up at Prospect Point, we noticed that there was no traffic on the Lion's Gate Bridge...

...which is pretty darned unusual. It turns out that a tree had fallen across the Causeway leading onto the bridge, totally blocking it, and access to the bridge and Stanley Park had been totally shut down. And the tourists from Alberta were blithely strolling along, watching giant Douglas firs sway above our heads. D'oh!We got some awesome pictures, though, and had a lot of fun.

The next day dawned a little brighter, and we ventured out to White Rock...

...where my two beautiful daughters gamely posed out at the chilly end of the pier. The weather was not warm, but we managed to stroll the beaches and consume ice cream, anyway. There was an unfortunate incident with a fish and chips restaurant that we like to frequent near the beach, but, in the end, we found another place that we liked even better. And Montgomery's had deep-fried pickles! We have a new favorite spot, all thanks to some very poor customer service. Funny how those things work out, isn't it?

We ventured out to Steveston for an afternoon, too. We had never been out there before, but we will definitely go back. Still a working fishing port, there were fresh fish and shrimp for sale off the boats, funky shops, and lots of restaurants to explore. But the high point was definitely the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site. We sort of went in with our tongues in our cheeks, and shenanigans abounded...

...but it turned out to be a wonderful museum, too! Parks Canada has done an amazing job of preserving the atmosphere and recreating the working conditions in an early 20th-century salmon cannery, and of making the exhibits interesting and entertaining at the same time.

Then, of course, we had to go to the Vancouver Aquarium...

...where more silliness occurred.

A lot of silliness.

It was a fun vacation, with all of us throwing away our worries for a whole week. We had fun, and that's what a vacation is for. Even if the weather is dreadful.

And that's what family is for, too.

There were the usual twisted and incomprehensible travel arrangements made for the return trip, so the others left the next day, and I followed a day after that. We had a day in Edmonton, then decided to head home. Which turned out to be a good idea. We drove into some rain and wind, pursued by the same storm we had encountered in Vancouver and got home safe and sound. Only to wake up to this...

...the very next morning. Over 25 cm of snow overnight, and it just kept coming all weekend. Our back door was impassable...

...but we ran out of coffee, so I had to venture out. Once was enough. I have been holed up in the studio, sorting treasures and popping out to change loads of laundry all weekend. And spinning.

Wow, now that I take a moment to remember, I realize I did a lot in last month. No wonder I haven't gotten any blogging or knitting done. Uh, oh. Now I'm home, with no adventures to distract me. I think I have some catching up to do!

Billet Doux

2010-03-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

I have really fallen down on the old blogging lately, though, in my own defense, there has been little time to blog. This past weekend, I presented a workshop in Fort St. John, BC. The workshop was well-received, but the participants had a complaint about my blog... apparently, I do not blog often enough. So, even though I am still on the road, I had to sit down and rectify that situation.

March has been a busy month. Actually, that is something of an understatement. It would be more accurate to say that March was an insanely action-packed month. Workshops, medical appointments, children's theatre and more workshops totally consumed the month, leaving me little or no downtime. I'm now in Vancouver and looking forward to some of that downtime--a lovely week-long visit with Miss Lexi, with Steve, Julia, and my father-in-law joining us later in the week. Stanley Park, White Rock, Granville Island, plus all of our favorite little haunts await, and the freedom to knit any old thing that strikes my fancy. R and R at its finest.

I'm hanging out in my daughter's apartment tonight. Last night, I was in a lovely home on the banks of the Peace River. Three weeks ago, I visited two equally lovely homes in Arizona. I have been billeted a bit lately.

The term billeting comes from an old military tradition of sending a letter (a billet, from the French word for, oddly enough, letter) to a community demanding that soldiers be given rooms in homes there. Nowadays, it's a more generously offered accommodation, given to out-of-towners for any number of reasons. Billeting is pretty common for those of us who travel to teach in the arts and crafts world and, while there are those who find it awkward or uncomfortable, I love it.

I have been billeted several times, in all sorts of different homes. Some have been spacious and elaborate. Some have been cozy and homey. I have had a private bathrooms and I have shared a bathroom with a family of 5. I have met spinners, and their husbands, and their kids, their friends, and their dogs, cats, bunnies and birds. I have eaten wonderful food. I have been plied with coffee, with wine, with chocolate, and with oatmeal. I have been taken to favorite restaurants and pubs. I have been toured around towns and cities and shown the sights, many of which are wonderfully yarny.

I have had my several billets in the last few years, and they have all been wonderful in some way or another. The generosity of those who open their homes to visiting instructors is amazing. Non-coffee-drinkers get coffee in. I jokingly tell someone that I am partial to cake, and a cake is baked. Night-owls get up early in the morning to make sure I get a good breakfast before the workshop. Red wine flows like water. (Seriously, I am somewhat concerned that the entire spinning community in North America will one day be washed away by a red wine tsunami. I'm pretty sure we keep several vineyards in business, just us spinners!) And everyone who acts as hostess does so willingly, with great joy and enthusiasm. I love these people!

Don't get me wrong--hotels are nice, too. But there is something that just warms the cockles of my heart about being invited into someone's home, into their life, even just for a day or two.

The word billet also appears in the French phrase "billet doux", which means love letter. So tonight I am sending a love letter to all those wonderful who have hosted me in their homes over the past few years, and to those that I hope will do so in the future. Thank you for your generosity, your kindness, your candidness, and your beds. You have enhanced each of my travel experiences by sharing your lives with me, and I appreciate it more than I can ever say.

Snapshots From the Road

2010-03-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a touch-landing at home today and tomorrow before I'm off again on my next adventure--this one not fibre related, but an adventure none the less. I'm dashing around like a mad thing, trying to get things ready for the next trip, organizing the household for another bout of Momlessness, and generally trying to keep on top of March. Not a lot of time to blog, but I'd thought I'd give you a quick glimpse of my trip.

Bisbee and the class were amazing. Once again, a room full of people as passionate about string as I am. Awesome, smart, funny, talented people at that. Simply amazing. And waaaay too much fun!

So, on to the snapshots...

With my usual convoluted travel arrangements firmly in place, I drove to Edmonton, then flew to Las Vegas. I booked a hotel room through Hotwire.com, which is a trippy experience to begin with, but it turned out to be in the Planet Hollywood Resort. Which was fabulous in so many ways, including the view from my window...

...and the bathtub! I very nearly never made it to Bisbee. I could have happily lived the rest of my life in that tub!

But I did make it to Bisbee. Or rather, to Tucson, where I picked up by Joan Ruane, who was my hostess for the weekend. Joan is a fantastic spinner, and a warm and generous hostess, who even humored my request to stop at Tombstone to get my picture taken at the OK Corral.

That shadow is Joan!

Then we detoured to the wetlands just near Joan's home to see the sandhill cranes who were passing through as they began their migration north. To Wood Buffalo National Park, just north of us here in McMurray. (I hope they plan their travel routes more efficiently than I tend to!)

A good night's sleep, and off to the workshop...

...which would not be complete without a class dog!

Meet Ladybug, the constant companion of one of the participants. Ladybug sat quietly and patiently while I gabbled on about the intricacies of twist, and was always waiting with a cheerful wag and a lick when it was time for a break.

Bisbee itself is a charming little community perched on hilltops and steep slopes, all surrounding a now-defunct copper pit mine. The mine is alarmingly beautiful, since, as one of my students said, it's developed a patina. We passed it each morning on our way into the studio and every morning, I caught my breath at the colors and light. Stunning.

There are many wonderful stories about Bisbee, the class, the students, and the Art Auction (from which I came away the proud owner of a shawl woven by Joan!). There was gourmet chocolate and Bisbee blue turquoise and fabulous food and lots of laughs. Hopefully someone learned something useful, too...

Then back up to Tucson with Elaine, who turned out to be another generous and gracious hostess. I was subjected to this view over breakfast...

...but I think I coped very well. Just breathtaking--I can't even imagine waking up to that kind of beauty every morning. Elaine is an amazing weaver and has a studio away from this window, which I think is why she can be so productive. If I had this to stare at, I would never get anything done!

Once again, many stories came home with me from Tucson. I met with a group of knitters who knocked my socks off. Fortunately, they were knitting more! I got a tour of Tucson, and stopped in at Grandma's Spinning Wheel, where I got to try a Spinolution Mach II. I also got to go to Tucson Yarn and found some yummy sock indie yarn that is now on the needles. I visited the Tucson Fiber Arts Guild's rug study group, which was fascinating--especially show and tell. Then there was the mad dash to the airport, which is a long story all on its own! All in all a wonderful visit. And back to Vegas...

...where I had managed to Hotwire myself into Caesar's Palace, where I was upgraded to a honeymoon suite. With so much to do in Vegas, I mostly just wanted to crawl into this gigantic bed and sleep. But I didn't. Most of the shows were dark because it was mid-week, but there was plenty of shopping and fine dining. And a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom.

I got back to Edmonton, then back home. And I have been on the run since I got off the plane. The next two weeks will be a blur, then I'm off to Fort St. John to give my Spinning Super Socks workshop and a Don't Throw That Away seminar. Looking forward to more adventures. And more snapshots!

Setting A Good Example

2010-02-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

Well, so much for good intentions! It was my goal to blog every week, regardless of what was going on, this year. I missed last week, and this week is nearly gone, too. I guess I'd better write something...

I have spent the last two weeks spinning, knitting, hosting puppeteers, writing, packing, organizing, spinning, getting cortisone shots in my knee, knitting, writing...you get the picture. But mostly, I have been making samples.

Back when I was a newbie spinner, I took a lot of workshops. I heard a lot of "facts". I saw a lot of 2-yard lengths of yarn. I heard a lot of do's and don'ts. But I saw very few samples.

Now, there are a lot of great instructors who teach without samples, but my fellow students and I all seemed to agree that seeing how the principle being taught worked in an actual garment, or at least a swatch, really helped. And one wise instructor even said that samples were proof that the teacher knew what she was talking about. And, to be fair, there are a lot things that we teach in spinning that don't really need samples to back them up, or that the two-yard demo yarn will illustrate just fine.

But, do you really know what I mean when I say your stitches will skew if you underply?

Now you have a visual. (Or, at least you would if I had laid them out properly. It's there, trust me. Take the workshop.)

And how about explaining how a particular blend of fibres will perform in a sock?

There you go.

I have, over the past few years, accumulated quite a few samples of different types of yarn, and made samples to demonstrate certain points, but as I teach each workshop, I think of something else that would benefit from visual support. Simply telling us to do something is fine, but showing us gives depth and substance to the words. And giving us something we can touch is icing on the cake for tactile folk like spinners.

So, I have been spinning 30-yard skeins. Sock yarns, S and Z yarns, overplied and underplied yarns, woollen and worsted yarns. When I had to do this for my Master Spinner classes, I procrastinated and grumbled. Now, each day I try to see what I can demonstrate with a new yarn. It's been a lot of fun. (I'm sure there are a few current Master Spinner students out there who think I've gone off my nut with that statement. Really, it's fun! Honest!)

Of course, this means that my "real" spinning has been back-burnered for the last couple of weeks, and that I am still struggling to finish the last raglan cap on Steve's Christmas sweater. (Honestly, I have like 15 rows to go and just can't seem to get to it. Methinks there is some procrastination of the inevitable sewing-up there!) There are so many sample yarns to knit up, and I keep thinking there should be woven samples too. Oh, goody! More skeins!

So, there you have it. I have to set a good example. Or at least, set out a good sample.

On a personal note, because my family and friends read this blog, I got a new hairstyle this week. After a couple of years of that funky asymetrical cut always flopping in my eyes, I went and got my bangs cut and the whole shebang layered and shagged. May I present The New Moi:

It's much fluffier in person, which makes me happy. And I can see the world again, which is more amazing than I expected.

And yes, those are bib coveralls. Wanna make something of it?

I thought not.

Stasis

2010-02-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Stasis means a state of non-movement or balance. That's where I am right now--in stasis.

The rush and bustle of the holiday season is over. The Great Plumbing Crisis is resolved and we are postponing repairs for a bit. I have ordered supplies for my March workshops and can't do much else until those arrive. Fibre Week is out of my hands and will unfold as it unfolds. The traffic in my inbox has gone from 2 or 3 dozen emails each day to, well, 2 or 3. Julia and Steve are both in heavy-duty rehearsal schedules for next week's opening of High School Musical at Keyano Theatre, so no meals for the next 2 weeks. The weather is cold and grey and we seem to get just enough snow each and every day to make it inconvenient to go for a walk. I have nothing "important" to do.

So here I sit.

At first, it was really uncomfortable, not having to multi-task my way through the day. Getting one project or chore finished before moving on to the next. It made me anxious. Something was missing. Or I was missing something. In any event, it seemed very odd.

Then it got worse. I felt useless. I got panicky because I was only doing one thing at a time, and most of those things seemed useless and insignificant. I got really restless and irritable.

I was going through withdrawal.

Then I twisted my knee and had to sit. So I sat. I made a hat.

It's a nice hat. The pattern is Gwen's Slouch by Lauren Nell Roy (Ravelry link) and I knit it with the hot, hot pink cashmere that I spun up last month. I held the yarn doubled, cast on on Sunday morning and bound off on Sunday night.

And somewhere between the cast on and the bind-off, I realized that I was relaxed. That it was okay to spend a Sunday knitting a hat. That the world did not need me to keep it rotating.

I had forgotten how that felt. It feels kinda nice.

It's all good now. I can spin and knit and read and get caught up on movies I haven't seen and just sit. I am in stasis.

I know I won't stay here for long. Things are going to get ridiculously busy again in about another week or so, and March will be a gong show (I expect to be home for 6 whole days in March!) But it's nice to sit and be comfortable sitting.

Or sit and spin. And knit. And just enjoy what I'm doing at the moment.

Stasis.

Innovative New Tool!

2010-01-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

Do you face challenges when plying?

Are you tired of your traditional Lazy Kate?

Then why not try the all new Lazy Cat*? The innovative new plying tool that is guaranteed to make plying nearly impossible and add 3% cat fibre content to every yarn you make?

Not only will the Lazy Cat* slow those bobbins right down and keep your yarn from inconveniently becoming plied, it is a fabulous way to remove the smile from any spinner's face.

And when you are fed up with your Lazy Cat*, it can be removed with only minimal hissing and scratching.

*Patent Pending

No animals were harmed in the making of this blog entry, though the temptation was there...

Would You Like Some Cheese?

2010-01-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

Well, that was a waste of a perfectly good two weeks. If you thought there was some whine in the last post, you ain't seen nothin'yet, as the man said.

First, though, some fibre content and the good news...

I got my SSZ black silk/merino plied. Just over 500 yards, 15 WPI, and 6 TPI. It will eventually be the warp for a rigid heddle project, but I have to make the same yarn spun the traditional ZZS first. At least, that's the plan.

Then I got this all plied and washed, too...

...the Louet Northern Lights from this post. Super bulky and cushy, there are about 14oo yards of 4 WPI at 2 TPI. It's all washed, and it took it 3 days to dry, but it's now waiting in a bin until I can get the design muddled out. Here's a sexy close-up....

I love the colors and there is a sheen to the yarn that is absolutely fabulous!

Now on to the whine..in my last post, I alluded to a lingering head cold. It went away. It was really just a sniffle, sort of a ripple on the surface of my immune system. Little did I know that it was a preview for the upcoming tsunami...

Steve came home about 2 weeks ago with a little sniffle himself. Which turned into a monster headcold overnight. And for 2 days he laid on the couch sneezing and coughing. I soldiered bravely on, making soup and making sure there was plenty of Kleenex in the house. Then, a little tickle began at the back of my throat. I started to sneeze. Hard. My eyes got red and watery. And the headache set in.

Being the stoic type, I marched ever onward. There was laundry and spinning and correspondence to see to. So for three days, I tried to pretend nothing was wrong, all the while munching cold and sinus pills, echinacea, and vitamin C tabs. On day four, I gave up the fight. I didn't even try to get out of bed. I surrendered to The Worst Cold in the History of Humanity.

There are not words to describe my misery. I had what we suspect was the dreaded H1N1 in November and was livelier than this. For four days, I barely opened my eyes. I had the most amazing sinus headache--my migraines are so much more pleasant than this headache was. I had goo built up in the passages in my ear, so the room spun uncontrollably at times. I lost my voice to post-nasal drip irritation. I couldn't inhale. It was gruesome.

No fever. No chest symptoms. Just a head cold. And ten days later, I am still struggling to recover.

AND AT THE SAME TIME--yes, there is more...

You see, sometimes, when the weather turns really, really cold, the sewer gas exhaust pipe on our roof gets blocked by ice. This requires us to get the maintenance crew to come and unblock the pipe, which sometimes takes several days to happen. And while that pipe is blocked, we invariably get not only the delightful aroma of sewer gas drifting through the upper floor of our house, but an airlock that prevents the upstairs toilet from flushing properly and slows the bathtub's drainage to a trickle. This happened just as we were about to go away for a few days after Christmas.

So, we left it. We figured the weather would change or we would get someone to fix it once we got back in the new year. This turns out to have been a bad plan.

We came home to a partially-flushing toilet and a slow-draining bathtub and a forecast of above-zero temperatures. That meant we didn't have to call the maintenance creww, which, in the past, has turned out to be a great big hassle most of the time, anyway. So we didn't.

And then the toilet stopped flushing. It just filled up with water and overflowed. The bathtub ceased to drain. At all. There was much mad plungering and bailing, all in vain. It was the weekend. There was no maintenance crew to call. Steve was sick, and I was beginning to feel a wee bit punky myself. Then Julia went into the downstairs bathroom, which is directly below the upstairs bathroom. When she came out, she asked why the ceiling was bubbling in the bathroom. A brief inspection, followed by a ginger poke at the bubbled paint on the ceiling, resulting in a sudden downpour of sewage into the downstairs bathroom.

Buckets were grabbed and every available container was pressed into service. I stood, valiantly, under the downpour, catching the mess in what ever container came to hand while Steve cursed above my head, trying to bail the upstairs toilet and stem the flow of water. Every towel in the house was put to use. There were tears and curses and all manner of drama. Then we went to bed.

The next morning, the maintenance crew was called and they mosied on around that evening, climbed the ladder, rattled a hook the exhaust pipe and asked us to check the toilet. This resulted in another deluge in the downstairs bathroom. Mr. Maintenance diagnosed the problem as the ice jam being too far down the pipe for them to reach and promised he would be back in the morning with some brine to pour down the pipe and fix things once and for all. Steve decided he would try snaking the drain line to see if there was a problem there, too.

The promised brine showed up late the next day, and when I checked the flush this time, there was a mighty bubble and a rush of sewer stink, and a slow, gurggly drain. Huzzah! And I sent the maintenance crew on their merry way. I was so excited that I ran upstairs to flush the toilet again, and that's when the real trouble began. Not only did it rain in the downstairs bathroom again, but water started to come out around the base of the upstairs toilet. The wax seal under the toilet had given. It was too late to do anything but sulk that night, and both Steve and I were well into our nasty colds by this point, so we decided we would get a new seal and lift the toilet the next evening and repair it.

So, twenty-four hours later, with a mercifully stuffed nose, I helped Steve lift the toilet off the pipe and remove the old seal. There was water right up to the top of the drain, which is not right, so Steve thought he would send the snake down the drain while we had the chance. Two minutes of snaking, and a clump of something furry, resembling a drowned rat, came up. It seems that the airlock had created something of a vacuum that sucked all the debris in our drains up to a turn in the pipe and made a massive dam. Furball removed, the water miraculously drained. We did not examine the furball too closely, but it did contain, among other stuff, construction garbage that must have been there for the 30 years since this condo was built (because I'm sure none of my children would have flushed nearly 2 feet of baling wire). The toilet went back onto its new seal, and all has been well since. Except for the massive hole in the downstairs bathroom ceiling that we are waiting on an insurance quote for...

That was when I decided to stop getting out of bed for a few days.

But I'm up and around now, and while I am not 100%--there is still some congestion that makes my inner ears suddenly malfunction and dizziness ensues, and a mild lingering sinus headache on the left side--I'm trying to catch up. So many wonderful opportunities have come my way this last few weeks, and I couldn't say no. But I did have to say "later". And now later is here.

Whew! Thanks for letting my get that out of my system. And for those of you who held on until the end, here is a gratuitous pet picture to cheer you up...

You just know Teagan the Wonder Schnoodle is thinking, "Oh, the crap I have to put up with around here..."

My Glass of Whine

2010-01-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

...has been half-empty for the last couple of days. I'm feeling quite trapped in the house by the cold weather, and I seem to be caught in a never-ending spiral of housework that is keeping me from spinning, or doing anything else interesting. Everyone I know seems to be in a crisis, recovering from a crisis, or anticipating a crisis. Add a lingering head cold, a sore knee, and a plumbing problem that seems to have no other viable fix than to burn the house to the ground, fake our deaths and move to another country, and you have quite a case of the Oh-Poor-Mes.

I spent the morning drinking coffee and feeling unusually pessimistic that things would never improve, even though they usually do. Even a beautiful morning view like this did nothing to cheer me up.

So imagine my amusement when this showed up on my horoscope this morning:

Rather than being a pessimist, embrace the happy moments around you. This attitude will make you feel better. There is no good getting upset over things out of your control.

You know you are a grumpy panda when even the great sages at mytelus.com start noticing.

So let's embrace some happy moments, shall we?

First of all, the workshop line-up for Fibre Week 2010 is finished and up on the website. Huzzah! My rather scattered fall made the tasks of getting all of the instructors sorted out and the schedule arranged a little more difficult than it should have been, but the information has all been passed on to the fabulous team at Olds College and they have managed to make sense of it all and put together what looks like another amazing week. You can check it out for yourself right here. (I have to add my thanks to Otto and his team at Olds for all their patience and support at this point. I would still be flopping around in a pile of papers if not for them!)

Secondly, the Christmas knitting is almost done. Yes, I am well aware that Christmas was two weeks ago. But the Christmas knitting is usually finished in March, so I consider being one sleeve away from the end of this year's batch a personal triumph. As usual, I did not have the sense to take photos of the work, except for this one:

The pattern is Eunny Jang's Tangled Yoke Cardigan from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 and I knit it up in that yummy, yummy alpaca/silk/cashmere blend I had spun in November. The yarn was a joy to knit,and aside from a few issues with the fact that I do not read charts carefully, the knitting went quickly. Okay, there were a lot of issues with my inability to read each line of a charts carefully, which led to the Tweets about the Celtic Cables of Insanity. This is in no way a reflection upon Ms. Jang and her pattern, but should have been the first clue that things were slipping around the edges of my mind.

The sweater turned out to be stunning, in spite of my best efforts to ensure otherwise, and was much appreciated by Miss Lexi. I'm hoping to see a picture of it being worn someday (hint, hint?)

The other gifts included a Moebius wrap for my sister that I liked so much that I'm making one for myself out of the same yarn, and a hat for Brendan. Promptly wrapped and shipped off to Edmonton, without a photo shoot. D'oh!

My third little happy thing actually involves a project that got bumped from the Christmas list pretty early on. I spent the last couple of days spinning up the cashmere for a hat for Miss Julia and I now have about 225 yards of lovely, is somewhat pink, 3-ply fingering weight yarn to knit up...

Mmmmm,mmm,mm!

So I've made some nice string, gotten some knitting done, even set up the loom to finish those tea towels I started last year. My household is all suffering from the same cold I have, and we are all red-eyed and snuffly, but we are together and wearing handspun, handknit goodies to ward off the chill. The forecast is for warmer weather, which should resolve the cabin fever and the plumbing problem for a while.

And I have three weeks of clear calendar to spin in. Things start getting nuts again in Mid-February and the teaching season kicks in in March, but, for now, there is time for me to spin. What could be better than that? Okay, maybe a working bathtub, but what else?

Today is St. Distaff day, also known for some bizarre reason as Rock Day, the day when spinners and weavers traditionally return to work after the Festive Season, so it seems appropriate that I set aside everything that's bugging me and sit down at the wheel. There is a bulky yarn to finish up, some Merino/silk to ply, and some guanaco calling my name from the stash.

Well, what do you know? It worked! I'm in a much better mood.

I'm gonna go spin.

In With the New

2010-01-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010! We managed to make it through another year--some of us more gracefully than others, but here we are nonetheless.

We celebrated the changing of the decades in Edmonton, with family. There was much laughter--perhaps a little too much--along with fondue and, well...

...shoes. Really sweet shoes.

At this time of year, so many of us pause to reflect on the year that has passed and examine its events and their impact on their lives. Every time I tried to do this, I felt a little overwhelmed. So much has happened that my wee brain cannot process all of the data at once!

Let it suffice to say that 2009 was a year of transitions and flux. So many changes in my life and the lives around me. So many babies born, jobs lost, couples married. So many new ventures, successful and otherwise. So many illnesses diagnosed (too many!), new friends made, old friends lost. So many adventures embarked upon, and much travelling to new and exciting places. So many new knitters and spinners converted. To list everything that happened in 2009 would take longer than it did to live it!

Life is change, and this year was well-lived.

I have learned through the years that, like a roller coaster, life will go where it's supposed to, and it's best to just hang on tight and enjoy the ride, no matter how scary. And on the first day of 2010, the first day of a new decade, I'm clutching the bar of the roller coaster cart and closing my eyes as it climbs that first climb. I know that when the car reaches the top, the ride will begin again and all I can do is hang on and scream when I need to until the car rolls into the boarding platform. And I'll stagger off and maybe throw up a bit, then yell "Let's go again!"

Or, who knows? Maybe this year I'll decide to ride the Tilt-a-whirl instead.

"Tis the Season...

2009-12-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

...for warm, woolly socks, long nights lit by candles, and marathon knitting!

As I have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of winter weather. And the last two weeks have reminded me why, with a cold snap of temperatures in the minus forties, before the windchill. Top that off with a couple of power outages that shut down the fan on the furnace, and you have one cold, cranky woman on your hands. However, this nastiness has given me an excuse to wear all my little self-indulgent socks that I've been knitting.

Now, I knit a lot of socks. There is always a sock-in-progress in my purse, for those moments when I am waiting in line, sitting in a coffee shop, or stuck in traffic. There is usually a half-knit sock on the coffee table, too. But do I personally have a large collection of hand-knit socks? Of course not! I don't really know where all those socks I knit go--kids, Steve's sock drawer, friends, I suppose--but sometime last winter, I realized that I had only 1 pair of my own knit socks, and they were looking pretty threadbare.

So on my travels over the spring and summer, I collected a few little skeins of, shall we say, indulgent sock yarns. Alpaca blends, silk blends, superwash Merino--handpainted and luxurious. Mmm, mmm, mmm. And then I used the hours in airports, on airplanes, and in the passenger seat to actually use these yummy yarns. I made myself some socks.

First, the alpaca blend. Handpainted yarn from Alpaca Plus, 60% alpaca, 20% wool, 20% nylon. The knitting was done in May and June, mostly on planes while I did my little stint in the US. These socks did sit in a drawer for a couple of months, but I'm wearing them now! They are warm and have developed a slight halo from the alpaca that makes them feel super soft.

The next pair I knit were a Merino/silk blend from Red Fish Dyeworks. The four-ply yarn was a little on the heavy end for socks, and a little dear with 5 skeins costing about $85, but I wanted the colors together. I do have enough for about 2 more pairs of socks, so the cost will even out when I get those guys knit. I knit these during Fibre Week and into early August, using my basic sock formula and a simple Fair Isle pattern. I must admit that these are my current favorites--the combination of the silk and the bright colors make me happy every time I put them on.

And last, but far from least, are these beauties. There was a great frenzy of knitting in August, getting the first sock finished in about 2 days, then...nothing. I cast on the second sock in early October and knit about 3 inches of cuff, then...nothing. Then it got to be 30 below, and I decided to sit in my house and knit. I finished the second sock on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago. The yarn is handpainted by Mary Ann at Three Waters Farm. I loooove the colors! And these soft, comfy socks have gotten a lot of wear this past couple of weeks.

So, my toes have been warm and very stylish during the cold spell.

The other "up-side", if there could be such a thing when it is 40 below, is that there was no way I was going out into that weather. This turned out to be an up-side because that meant lots of time at home to spin and knit, and with the Big Holiday fast approaching, this was an added bonus. I do not buy a lot of gifts anymore, but I do knit and weave a lot of gifts. The more time at home, the more on top of the Christmas list I get. There is one Really Big Project that is moving a little slower than I would like, but otherwise, the dreaded Christmas knitting is under control. (Touch wood!)

The long dark nights and the cold, cold weather have not been very conducive to a festive state of mind around here, but things are looking up. We are having a heat wave of -23C today, and the Christmas baking is done. The tree is up, and there are even a couple of gifts wrapped. I ventured out yesterday to the post office and the mall, two place I usually try to avoid this time of year, and everyone I met was cheerful and helpful. And the dark drive home at 3:30 p.m. was lit by Christmas lights.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

And my toes are warm.