The Continuing Story

First, before I get back to our adventures in Spokane, I want to announce that my Papyrine Wrap (Tree-Hugger) got accepted to the Hanji Exhibit! Yay! I knew it was a shoe-in. Heh.

OK where was I? Oh right. Thursday afternoon after we got our booth set up several of the group went on a bus tour of the local galleries to see fibre art. Me, I went to the vendor hall:

Those isles (there were only 2) extended down the length of the gym and were filled with goodies guaranteed to get fibre fanatics salivating. It was a smaller number than I’ve seen in the past but that didn’t stop me from finding new things I Had To Have every single time I walked in the door. From Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning I managed to spend quite a few buck-a-roonies on such lovely things as:

An end-delivery shuttle in amazique (aka shedua) wood from Bluster Bay Woodworks and a purpleheart spindle made by Jim Echter from Weaving Works’ booth. Yum. I love nice woods. The shuttle was my single biggest purchase. Now I have to weave with it, don’t I? And a spinner can never have too many spindles. Just sayin’.

Then I fell hard for the Just Our Yarns booth. They had lovely hand-dyed yarn skeins and kits which included nearly everything you need to make the project. They had knit kits and weave kits. I fell hard for the knitted lace Bias Scarf which came in a kit with a second pattern – the ZigZag Scarf (because one skein is enough for two) – plus the yarn (8/2 tencel), beads and even a crochet hook to apply them:

Of course later I can use the same pattern with some other yarn and beads from the stash. They would definitely make a nice gift. I got other yarn too including some undyed Henry’s Attic Felting Pony (a cone of cobweb-weight superfine merino weighing just over a pound or around 3600 yds) for weaving and a skein of Baruffa Cashwool (also cobweb-weight natural-coloured superfine merino – so soft - but this one might become a shawl) from Yarn Barn of Kansas. Then from Newton’s Country Yarns I got 4 honking-huge skeins of Happy Feet superwash sock yarn for half price (aka really really cheap). These look like handpaints but aren’t. One of the skeins is nearly a pound (equivalent of four 100gm skeins) and the others over a half-pound each. I see at least one sweater and a lot o’socks in my future.

Of course I also got books:

I can see that I was on a weaving kick since 2 are loom weaving, 2 are fingerweaving (which I used to do way back in the early 1970’s) and one is on natural dyeing and growing your own dye plants. I hope to review these later.

More on the seminars etc. to come. Right now it’s 9000 degrees out and bedtime. I think I accidentally brought the hot weather home with me. It was about 32C today which is not only rare for July or August in Vancouver but it’s totally out of keeping with early June. I spent the early morning in the shaded garden weeding and planting more of my path stones and just before dinner watering everything in sight. Now I have to go try to sleep in a too-hot bedroom. No, I’m not complaining! It could be winter, eh? My garden is happy and I’m happy. If somewhat toasty.