Spinning with the critters......

I'm back from the NwRSA annual conference - it's always such a fun four day event filled with classes, spinning and visiting with fiber friends, old and new. And I will say that we have the most fun spinning circle of all....or maybe that's the silliest, loudest, song singing spinning circle. If you have never attended this conference you must put it on your calendar for next June.

I took two day long classes - the Sally Bag, a traditional root gathering basket taught by Eileen VanBronkhurst and Top Down Triangular Scarves and Shawls taught by Evelyn Clark. I'll post a picture of my samples from the classes once I finish the Sally Bag which is very small but time consuming. I loved the process of twining this cute little bag and already have ideas floating around in my head for my own designs (when I'll find the hours to do them is another thing). And I learned so much in the knitting class with Evelyn Clark - a good understanding of the triangular shawl and how to start thinking about designing my own. Both teachers were very patient, knowledgable and nice on top of that!  I did decide that next time I won't fill each time slot with classes, not enough time in my spinning circle visiting with my fiber peeps.

Every year I try to make or find a little goodie for my spinning circle buds to hang on their wheels. This year I knit some little critters from the book Mochi Mochi, these are very tiny, ranging in size from 1"-2". All my regular buds got them until I ran out, sorry I couldn't pass out more but each one took me an evening to knit and I ran out of time to knit anymore.

As usual we put together a basket, or in this case a red rolling cart, for the raffle basket drawing. That's ours in the center - it was jam packed with fiber, yarn, wine, honey, toffee, gift items and a yarn swift. It was fun to see the gal that won it roll it back to her spinning circle.

And here's the basket I won.  My first time ever winning a raffle basket in spite of the hundreds of tickets I've bought over the years. I was so excited when my name was called. I was impressed by the packing job because there's a tremendous amount of fiber, yarn, spindle & felted bag, many books (none of which I own), canned seafoods from the Oregon coast, jelly, preserves, coffee from the coast, a chica bag and Oregon coast agates with a booklet to identify them. This couldn't have been more perfect for me. I see folks searching for agates on the beach but I can never figure out what is an agate or just another rock, with examples to go by and this booklet I'm hoping to add agate collecting to my shell collecting.

I also won a door prize - a tote bag with a wine motif complete with a bottle of wine, lavendar yarns and a one pound chocolate bar.  I shared the chocolate with my spinning circle.

So in spite of the 3" hard as rock mattresses in the dorm room and bad institutional food (it's usually quite acceptable) a great time was had. My feet, ankles and calves swelled from all the salt in the food but this morning they're starting to get back to normal......and now I must continue to play catch-up after being away for 5 days, much on my to-do list for this week.