Retreat Spinning

I was away this weekend at the annual SWIC (Spinners and Weavers of Imperial Calcasieu) Retreat. I love this retreat - we meet for 3 days of spinning and weaving and TALKING and sharing and eating and SHOPPING. It's like a spinner-slumber-party!

I bought some gorgeous red Gulf Coast Native wool from Margrett, and a bunch of stuff from Peggy at Skyloom Weavers: polwarth, panda, natural CVM, shredded blue jeans, and sari silk.

Here's what I spun while I was there:

Pigeonroof Studios, 'Water Lily', chunky thick/thin 2-ply, 120 yards

Pigeonroof Studios, 'Fruit Juice', chunky thick/thin 2-ply, 120 yards

Skyloom Weavers, 'Crayons', worsted wt n-ply, 160 yards

Art at Eagles' Find, 'Forest', worsted wt 2-ply, 190 yards

I also spun 3 full spindles of cotton on the charkha, then plied it into a skein of laceweight (8/2 for the weavers) 2-ply, 300 yards. I'm going to show you that later this weekend - I haven't boiled it yet. It's going in the handspun cotton stash that I'm building up for weaving handspun curtains - a long-term project, but SO satisfying!

Rainbow Towels in Progress...

I spent the weekend in the company of wonderful friends, the Weavin' Chicks - learning to weave Advancing Twill. We wove a scarf from bamboo, and learned that "Advancing Twill" means "a zillion picks per repeat"! We managed to get some lovely scarves woven - here's mine, before fringe-twisting and washing (I promise a better picture when it's done):

Happy to be able to report some progress on the Rainbow towel warp. Since I have 12 towels on this warp, I decided to weave 6 pairs of weft colors. The first two towels are PINK:

The second set of two towels is PURPLE:

And the third set is BURGUNDY:

I'll weave more tomorrow - I'm hoping to finish the whole warp tomorrow and Wednesday, so I can bring it to show off at the Saori retreat this weekend. A group of us are meeting at my friend Cheryl's Weavin' Place Saori-Style studio-in-the-woods for a Saori "Kai" ("sharing time") retreat, and as a special treat, my dearest friend Sherie is coming from Amarillo for the weekend! I can't wait to see her again.

I've also made great progress on my husband's sweater yarn - I've got two 4-ounce bobbins spun, and am working on the third (of four). This will be my first 4-ply yarn, and I can't wait to start plying, because the colors are gorgeous (pictures tomorrow, I hope!)

Quiet

At Retreat in June, I had a conversation with my friend Martha, a fellow guild member, about introversion. We have a lot in common, Martha and I - we crave alone-time, we dislike crowds, we are disturbed by loud sounds, we prefer a good book to a movie, we need to retreat after socializing. Martha recommended the book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. I just got around to it, and only a few pages in, the book already resonates well with me.

Laura Fry (another fellow introvert) is reading the book as well, and brought it up on her excellent weaving blog, "Weaving A Life". In her comments, someone linked this TED talk video with Susan Cain, and I'd like to share it with you here. If you're an introvert (or you love someone who is introverted) I think you'll find it interesting.

Handwoven SAORI Market Bag

Our guild Retreat is coming up fast. Such a lovely time to relax with friends and fiber, with no responsibilities and no schedule. Wait... there IS one responsibility - every year we're given a different challenge, to create something incorporating some handspun. This year it's a market bag. I was planning to knit something... and then suddenly I realized the time had gotten away from me, and knitting was going to take too long. Enter weaving - so fast, so fun!

I dug around in my handspun stash, and found a skein of fingering weight silk singles I'd spun a long time ago from a pastel-rainbow tussah silk top (in the picture, I've already wound it onto bobbins). Perfect for my main weft. Thinking SAORI-style, I grabbed some multi-colored silk hankies and a small handful of mulberry silk top, along with some leftover bits of cotton yarn from another project.

Then I warped my Cricket loom with black 5/2 and 8/2 cotton, held together, in the 12 dent rigid heddle. This gave me a good background for some color play.

You can see that I used the handspun silk as the ground weft, and randomly tossed in torn-off bits of the hankies and top, creating hills and valleys and delightful textures. In true SAORI fashion, I didn't worry (much, I'm still a structure girl!) about the edges, and knew they would be sewn in anyway.

In practically no time, the piece was done.  The warp was 3 yards, and 7.5" in the reed/heddle. My finished piece was 90" x 6.5". I used this guide on Doni's Deli's blog to create the bag - essentially, the strip of cloth is folded like origami and sewn up the sides.

Et voila!

(That's the bag simply pinned together, before sewing.) I sewed it by hand, partially because I was intimidated by the thought of trying to get the thick fabric under my machine's foot, and also because I wanted to use the same black 8/2 cotton as I had in the warp. I was glad I'd made that decision - the fabric felt good in my hands and the sewing was relaxing.

Here's the finished bag. I folded the strap's edges in and sewed it as a tube (using an invisible ladder stitch) to narrow the strap and to give it strength. There was no cutting involved in the construction.

I am absurdly pleased with this bag. Once I add a lining, it will become my new everyday bag. I'm secretly hoping people will stop me and ask where I got it, so I can proudly say, "I wove this myself!"

Beach!

I am not a beach girl myself, being extremely pale and susceptible to lobster-like sunburns, no matter the SPF. But I love to look at beach pictures. Here is a link to Flickr's search and a lovely collection of beach scenes. (I didn't want to swipe someone else's picture and violate their copyright!)

Thinking about upcoming summer, and fun beach opportunities (for others... PALE, remember?) I pulled this lovely handdyed fiber from my stash:

It's domestic wool, from Spunky Eclectic Club July 2010 in her "Retreat" colorway. It spun so nicely and turned out nice and soft. I chain-plied it so it would become a self-striping sock yarn:

 I see the water, sand, rocks...

...everything but the sunburn. Aaaahhhh. :)

If I wait for pictures, I'll wait forever.

My daughter frequently nags me about feeding the blog, and I say, "OK - but I need to take some pictures first." The problem is that I don't LIKE to take pictures. I do it out of necessity - someone really wants to see a specific item, or I have a yarn ready to put in the Etsy shop - but I don't enjoy the role of shutterbug.

Lest May get away from me without a post (as April nearly did), I thought I'd just type and see what happens.

My weekends have been full lately with required re-certification workshops for the daycare (where I am head of the infant department - 8 sweet little newborns!) but I did manage to squeeze in a wonderful spinning/weaving retreat in Lake Charles, Louisiana last weekend. It was sponsored by the Spinning/Weaving Guild of Imperial Calcasieu (parish) and was held at the St. Charles Retreat Center in Moss Bluff, about 3.5 hours away from me. I went with Cheryl (my weaving mentor) and 6 other fellow guildmembers. We spent 4 days relaxing, spinning, weaving, laughing, and learning. The retreat center had a conference room for us to use 24 hours a day - we made "nests" with our wheels and spindles and RH looms and fiber piles, then played whenever we wanted and rested back in our rooms when we were tired. You could go spin at 3am if you were so inclined. Heaven!

I finished Jessica's Opal Magic socks, and started 3 more pair with handspun - all Spunky Eclectic. Two are Club (Soul Windows and New Day) and one is Panda Emerald Isle. I firmly resolve to take and post pictures for you when they're finished. :)

I've been spinning and knitting this past month, with no attention spared for the loom. Ezara has inspired me, though, with her descriptions of warping her Baby Wolf. I have sleyed the reed for the Monk's Belt towels on the Macomber - but they need threading, and that's what I plan to do today. There, I typed it, so now it will come true!