NWRSA report

I've been gone for close to a week. I went to the NWRSA spinning conference up in Tacoma, WA. with some of my fiber buddies. We shopped and ate our way up and back which was very fun. Conference was great although a bit of a challenge due to construction at the University of Puget Sound where it was held and where we stayed in the dorms. I loved it but was very glad to be pulling back into my own drive yesterday afternoon. Sorry, no pix - I had plans of taking pictures along the way to post here but once I forgot to take a picture at our first stop at Bronx Bagel for breakfast it went downhill from there....some people love to take photos, I'm not one of them, I rather experience it than worry about a camera.

I made some fun crocheted owls to give to some fellow spinners while at conference. I still have some left so they may become package toppers. The pattern for these can be found on Ravelry, they're called Owl Keychain Pattern. They're very fun and addictive to crochet.

This is what I started spinning at conference while sitting in the spinning circle. It's from the rolags I made on my blending board a couple weeks ago. I'm curious to see how it will eventually looked plied. I have no idea what the handspun will grow up to be when finished.

Time to get back to weaving - hoping to warp the loom tomorrow........

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.

More NWRSA...........

These were my entries in the NWRSA gallery. I got a 1st place on my knit scarf (center) and on two of my handspuns, then two 2nd places and two 3rd places all on handspun yarn. I was just a bit miffed over them, not the actual judging on the quality of my work, they were right on, I don't strive for handspun yarn that looks like it was machine spun so I have no complaints about comments on little slubs here and there or inconsistencies in twists per inch in some of my skeins. But those top four skeins were either to be judged together or just put on display and not judged - I wanted them shown together to share with others how I created 4 coordinating skeins from one length of hand-dyed roving. They took them apart to judge them, spread them out over 4 different tables and did not include the pictures I gave them of the roving and how I separated it. Another comment was that my items would be scored higher if I only included 35 yards in a skein, well, yeah, if I cherry picked 35 yards they would be higher......but in that skein that flows from yellow at one end to black at the other sure wouldn't have worked in only 35 yards, they would have only seen one color. Oh well......I really shouldn't complain because I'm very grateful that there were volunteers who took on the gallery and everything else connected with this conference. I truly had a great time, once again.
 
Thought I'd share a picture of  the basket the 5 of us attending from our little area donated as a fund raiser for the organization. It's hard to tell but this was a gigantic tub - those sheep are huge!

My tiara!

My friend, Kathy, surprised me at guild Saturday with a tiara - it was hysterical. We had talked about how much more fun a tiara would be than the plaques for winning best of the gallery at the NwRSA conference. Well, she knit, felted and beaded me a tiara this past week - I love it! So, tomorrow I'll wear it to my spinning group, might have to get there late to make an entrance. I'm sure everyone will get just as tickled over it as I did!

A few pics from NWRSA trip

Just got back last night from the NWRSA annual conference (Northwest Regional Spinner's Association). This year the conference was held at Pinelow Park which is a camp/lodge resort on Loon Lake north of Spokane, WA. What a great time we all had.....the 2 day drive was well worth it.......as always! But I will be very happy next year when it's just 4 hours north of here in Salem. Weird thing though, we were forewarned, no breakfast, we had to bring our own breakfast food which is kind of a pain when traveling a far distance (buffet meals are served in a dining room). It became the joke between us all - no breakfast! We did put together a big raffle basket from our area to donate, sorry there's no picture, lighting in the area with the spinning circles was very poor so the picture isn't very good. Our friend, Janis Thompson, of Dyelots in Eugene, OR won our basket. Spinning circles were very crowded and tough for visiting in other circles but we managed to enjoy ourselves. Congrats to the conference committee for putting on another great event and for all the time spent planning and following through - I'll bet they'll be spending the week recovering.

Yes, this is my merino/tencel handspun handwoven scarf you recently saw me post about as I was weaving it. I won the grand puh-bah prize - Best Use of Handspun which is the top prize of the gallery each year. In the judging I scored 100 points out of 100, I didn't realize that it's a rarity for the judges not to, at the very least, take off one point - I'm honored. I was so surprised, I actually didn't believe it at first when I saw it in the gallery after judging. I know it's a beautiful scarf but there are always such beautiful knit lace pieces I never thought a woven piece would win out - hurray for weaving!  Ok, so the funny thing is that I get this plaque plus another one that I need to go get my name engraved on with the year noted - then I return these next year. Hmm, wonder where to keep this safe until next year..........I did suggest something else to add to this that would be very fun - a tiara - lots of  sparkle & bling with fiber.......who knows, that may happen.

I took 3 fun classes, nothing to do with spinning or knitting and I loved it. I took 2 basket classes with Sharon Gunter: the berry basket and the wool drying basket. She's a great teacher, so well prepared, so patient and very fun. I also took a journal making class with Ruthie Haworth. We made one journal and came away with materials to make another in a different style (hoping to get to it this week). Ruthie was so prepared and had little kits made up for us. I'd take anything Ruthie ever teaches - not only was she a great teacher but she's a really fun gal. 

Here's a picture of my room before my roomie and I destroyed it with our piles of 'stuff'. It was very comfortable for a rustic lodge, we even had our own bathroom and didn't have to walk down the hall to a community bath. Did I mention we got no breakfast...........

Here's the view of the lake from the deck at our lodge. There were a couple lodges, many cabins and even RV and tent camping. This was taken on our first day there - next day it poured!

Here's the little gift I gave to my spinning buddies to hang on their wheels. It's a wrap per inch guide from Karatstix who has an etsy shop. She was so wonderful to make these up for me special since she only had one in her shop when I first looked to buy. Everyone loved it! Check out her shop - she has some very fun accessories for spinners and knitters.

Driving home we stopped at a really nice Comfort Inn for the night in The Dalles, OR along the Columbia River. We got very tickled over the fact that there were phones in the bathrooms. We went for a walk on a bridge to see The Dalles Dam - what a site. We also watched one of the paddle boats head into the lock to get around the dam, unfortunately when in the lock it was out of our sight. Did I mention we DID get breakfast at the Comfort Inn!

I took this picture of a partial rainbow, too bad it's hard to see in this small picture - it was beautiful. This picture was taken from out on the bridge looking back to the shore. I did get an incredible shot of the complete rainbow but the background of hotels wasn't exactly the scenic look I would have liked.

Did we shop???  Well, of course! And we learned how to pack very efficiently. There are four spinning wheels, suitcases, workshop supplies, tons of fiber, etc. in the back of the van plus all we bought on the trip home! An unplanned stop was Fabric Depot in Portland - oh my gosh, an hour there was not nearly enough time but we managed to drop hundreds of dollars between us all. And then, of course, the outlet mall and the mandatory Trader Joe's stop (we made that stop on the way up too to pick up wine & snacks for the conference).

So this is what I've been up to the past week. It's now time to get back to work. I'm dying to get back to the loom but I've got a program/workshop to prepare for on kumihimo that I'll be presenting to a weaving guild on the coast next month. I've also got a display board to put together for the county fair display we put up each year, that needs to be done by August. With the way time is flying both of these will be here before I know it so they've got priority before I get back to weaving.