Great Balls of Fiber

My friend Mary is the coordinator for our guild's evening group. (Our guild meets the second Saturday of each month, and we also have an evening meeting on the second Monday night of each month.) She was looking for ideas for programs, and I remembered seeing a description of a neat project on WeaveTech - I think posted by Cathie from New Zealand? That post didn't include detailed instructions, so here's what I wrote up for Mary to send out to participants.

Great Balls of Fiber Challenge

The challenge is to a) clear out fine yarns you no longer want and b) transform those yarns into balls of really cool, unique yarns that can be used as either warp or weft, or for knitting or crochet.

Things to bring:

• a ballwinder
• a pair of scissors
• cones or spools or balls of fine yarns - any fiber, any color, any amount
• a binder clip (to use as a simple thread guide)
• a paper sack (to keep the things you're winding from rolling all around the room, and to take home what you create)
  

What we'll do:
SETUP: When we arrive, we'll put all of the cones or balls on a central table, and each person will set up their winding station with their sack, binder clip, ballwinder, and scissors. Attach the ballwinder to the table, put a binder clip on the edge of the table, flip one leg out to use as a guide), and set the sack on the floor below the binder clip.

SELECTION: When everyone is ready to begin, you will go to the yarn table and pick a minimum of 4 yarns to combine into your own unique Great Ball of Fiber.

WINDING: Place your source yarns in the paper sack. Grab the ends of each thread, holding them together, run the new yarn up through the binder clip and attach it to the ballwinder. Wind a ball until the ball is either large enough, or one of your source yarns runs out.

REPEAT: Keep choosing new yarns and winding new balls until time is up.













And here's what they made! Sure wish I could have joined them. (I had symphony chorus rehearsal that night.) Thank you Chris for the photos! I can't wait to see what they make with their new yarns.

(P.S. The NZ guild that did this originally didn't let the yarn creators keep their yarns - they had a big auction, and if you wanted to keep what you had made, you had to have the winning bid! Great idea for a fundraiser.)

Book Review: Unexpected Knitting

I consider myself mostly a weaver who occasionally knits. (This is a pretty amazing statement, considering how little weaving I've been doing lately. Hope springs eternal.)

Recently, I checked out a knitting book from the library, and I am COMPLETELY in love with this book! I'm definitely going to have to purchase my own copy, because it's one I know I will come back to again and again and again.

The book is called Unexpected Knitting, by Debbie New, and it is a feast in so many ways. The photographs are stunning and beautiful, but even better - it is full of the most incredible IDEAS. She discusses a variety of knitting design techniques, then for each one has a specific example of something to make using that technique. The techniques are:

• Free form knitting
• Scribble lace knitting
• Swirl knitting
• Sculptural
• Virtual Knitting
• Cellular Automaton Knitting
• Ouroborus Knitting
• Labyrinth Knitting

These range from easy and spontaneous to very complex, and yet she has a way of describing what's going on that makes it easy to see how each technique works.

I like some of her subheadings, too...

• For those who like to jump right in
• Learning to love your mistakes
• An elegant muddle
• The Better Mousetrap Sock and other sculptures
• "Knitting" the impossible
• Self-generating patterns
• Playing with mitered rings
• Long space-filling strips

Each techniques has its own gallery of photos showing the amazing possibilities she has explored in her work.

To cap it off, there's an Appendix with all the basic techniques you will need.

Let's just say if I were stranded on a desert island and I could only have one knitting book with me, this would be it!

No *Visible* Progress - Just Audible

Okay, I know I'm in a stall - both with weaving and this blog, but truly, I am NOT catatonic. Things have been very busy lately, just not with anything for which I can produce visible evidence here. :-)

I've actually had two main focuses lately: symphony chorus and a study group I'm co-facilitating.
I'll stick with one of them in this post.

La Jolla Symphony Chorus
I saw a notice in a little neighborhood newspaper this summer announcing that the La Jolla Symphony was having auditions for its chorus. I checked out their web site, gulped at the requirements, and immediately sent an email asking for an audition time (before I could chicken out.) I sang in some pretty cool choirs in my college days, but that was back in the 70's! We have an occasional choir at the Unity Center, and when it fits my schedule, I sing with them, but if anything, that revealed to me the changes in my voice since my youth. Scary, sad.

And I LOVED singing in a choir. There's something utterly magical about it, and there's nothing more satisfying than those moments when you realize something incredible has just been created, and you are a part of it. It's the closest you can get to bliss without sex! So why I have let this part of my life languish for decades is beyond me. Anyway, back to the audition.

I was surprised to get an immediate response to my audition request, so the day and time was set. I downloaded the practice theory quiz (which surprised me by how difficult it was) and began practicing a Brahms song. (You had to prepare one song to sing - either an art song or a piece from a musical. I definitely don't have a solo Broadway type voice, so I chose an art song.) I practiced and practiced. I freaked and freaked, wondering if it was going to be possible to achieve a presentable voice in time. The day before, I looked up the translation of the song I had prepared, and realized it was a man singing about a woman. I freaked some more, changed my plan to a very simple Italian song (Caro Mio Ben.)

The day of the audition, I did some vocalizing in the car on the way there, but nothing big, since I assumed they would warm us up as a group, then call us back individually for the audition. Boy, was I wrong. I got there and was handed a quiz. I sat down and started working on it, trying to keep my anxiety at bay. After a few minutes, I was tapped on the shoulder and called back to the rehearsal room.

The first tester started by playing several short melodies and asking me to sing them back. No warm up, just dive in. It went okay, though my voice was wobbly from nerves. I did okay on all but one of them, and got that one after a few repetitions. Then I was asked to sing a series of six melodic lines written on a sheet of music. Again, I did okay on all but one of them - couldn't seem to sing a sixth, in spite of the reminder of "My bonny..." - did the Goldilocks thing - sang a fifth, then a seventh, and didn't get the sixth until he played it on the piano. :-( I don't remember everything, or in what order things happened, but I think this same fellow had me sing the alto line of a hymn. That went by quickly, but I think I did okay. Back to the table in the hallway to work on my quiz.

I went through the quiz, doing the easy parts (not many) and working to contain the anxiety beginning to brew. Soon, I was tapped again.... off to the rehearsal hall. The director sat up in a seat in the audience area, the accompanist introduced herself - a lovely, very kind woman. She smiled and commented on my celtic knot necklace. I handed her the music for my song. And.... with no warm up, we launched into the song. It was thankfully short. I was a bit breathless in a few places. I thought my voice sounded terrible, but just kept trying to breath deeply and hang in there. I was given a sheet with We Wish You a Merry Christmas and asked to sing it. I did. Still fearful - it was right at the part of my range where I have a break in my voice and have to be careful. After a quick run through, I was asked to sing the version at the bottom of the page, which had lots of markings. That went okay, too - well, at least I was able to indicate I could understand the markings, even if my voice didn't sound very good.

As we walked back to the hallway for me to finish the theory quiz, the director asked me a few questions. I mentioned that my youngest son just graduated from high school, and when I saw the notice for the audition, it seemed a good time to try to return to something I left behind in my life that I dearly loved. I finished the quiz, and came home, went to my room and threw myself on my bed and sobbed for two hours. I was embarrassed, but mostly, I felt bereft. I was convinced that I had sounded terrible, and that this was a dream too long deferred that had died.

The next afternoon was when they were going to give results. When I got home from church, Eldy gave me a message to call the coordinator for the chorus. I called and got an answering machine. Did lots of deep breathing, and a few hours later, I tried again. She answered. I was astonished to hear her say "The director would like to invite you to join the chorus in the alto 2 section." I couldn't believe my ears! When I went to tell my husband, he had a big grin on his face, so I knew that he already knew. Boy, is he good at keeping a secret!

I've been to four rehearsals now, and they have been both scary and exhilarating. At the first one, we sight read two pieces, and I was astonished. I asked the woman next to me (who I shamelessly followed) if they had sung those pieces before. No. And yet, they all seemed to know their lines flawlessly. They even watched the director and followed him, while sightsinging. Amazing!!! The second week, the woman I had sat next to wasn't there - she ended up sitting in the back of the room away from everyone because she said she had been sick. Then, the back row of women I was sitting in was asked to move to the front to make more room for the men. So... not only did I not have the person I was following next to me, but I was in the front row. Luckily, I had practiced a LOT, and it was fine. In fact, it was more than fine. Normally, I don't get to stand in front, because I'm tall. Well, when you are in front, you hear all the voices blending behind you, which is a lovely feeling. In the rehearsals since then, I've returned to the back row. I know I'm okay now. I still don't know that many people, but slowly but surely, I expect to make some dear and deep friendships.

The work we will perform in December is the Bernstein Mass, and I will admit that it is probably the most difficult piece of music I've ever worked on. So I'm stretching a lot, in so many ways, and I'm very very happy. I'm also loving technology - I have the music in my little iPod shuffle, and listen to the full score while sitting at the piano, so I can play my part when I'm not sure about it. How cool is that? The only problem is that the earbuds started aggravating my tinnitus, so I'm taking a break for a few days, and found some inexpensive little speakers on ebay.

I am deeply grateful for this experience. The music we are singing is incredible, the director is absolutely fantastic, and I am very lucky to get to sing with a group of such wonderful singers. This is the best example I've had in a long time of the great reward for walking through BIG FEAR.

I'll post later about my study group, and about my weaving pondering. I loved Sue's latest blog post - definitely lots to think about there! Maybe those lines of thought will even get me back weaving. I hope so. In spite of my other bliss, I've really been missing it.

Another Fun Thing - Rug Repair Field Trip

Another weaving friend - Judy L - arranged for our Warped Explorers study group to have a tour of a very neat place called K. Blatchford's Oriental Rug Cleaning, Repair and Restoration. We were each given a folder of information, and then Dana took us around, showing us each process that they perform. It really was fascinating!

We ended up in the repair room. This photo shows Kay, the owner, telling us about her business, and Leslie on the right, the one who does the reweaving. All the yarns used to do the knotting are hand-dyed to match the rug being repaired.


This shows the area where they wash rugs. They don't use any chemicals, just a gentle shampoo. Water is pushed up through the rug. For delicate rugs, they just squegee off the water. For the ones that can take it, they have one of those rotary scrubbing rug cleaners.


After the rug has been cleaned, it holds a LOT of water, so they run it through this giant wringer to remove as much water as possible. Then the rugs are laid out, right side down to protect the nap, to dry. Some of them can be dried outside in the sunshine, some are kept inside, with drying machines setting on top to accelerate the drying process
.

This is the storage area. They provide a storage service for their customers, which involves rolling up a rug and placing it in a Tyvek sleeve.


Here's Leslie in the repair room. You can see the wall of wefts hanging behind her.


At the other end of the repair room, you can see people working on fringes. Sometimes they simply reknot. Sometimes they add a new fringe - either tieing in a new fringe, or sewing on a commercial fringe. Sometimes they just do a rolled edge, depending on the rug's style and condition.


This is my favorite photo. Leslie has needlewoven in new warp and weft in the area being repaired. Once that is done, she ties in the knots, matching the design of the rug.

I was really grateful that Amy M took pictures - I forgot my camera.

P.S. Sue, we actually do get quite a bit of fall color here. When the trees change - I'll post some pictures of the liquidamber trees (aka sweetgum.) Not quite as glorious as maples, but they are lovely! Here's a post from last fall.

Hint of Fall

I'm still not weaving, but I'm seeing little hints of fall, so hopefully, soon!

For many years, I called these "bouquet trees", because at this time of year, they look like they have bouquets of color tucked in. I learned last year that these are Chinese flame trees. The "bouquets" are clusters of reddish seed pods.


In the meantime, a lot has been going on.

First, I'm am still surprised, and incredibly happy, that I was accepted into the La Jolla Symphony Chorus. I auditioned a few weeks ago. It was hard - lots of sight singing, singing a prepared song, and a 3 page *hard* music theory quiz. I came home feeling let down, thinking I hadn't sung well enough. After all, it's been 25-30 years since I have done anything like this. So getting accepted was a double thrill, because it means this dream didn't get deferred too long, and didn't die. :-) The first rehearsal is tonight, and I can hardly wait!

Other fun things have been happening. I've met some new friends through facebook. One of them is an alpaca rancher out in the high desert in Anza, CA. This past weekend was National Alpaca Farm Day, so I drove out there with Judy H, one of my weaving guild friends. It was fun to meet Julie Roy, the owner of the place, to see all the neat critters.

Here's a pic of Julie, talking to some of her visitors.

The alpacas are strange looking, but so mild-mannered, and the range of fleece colors was amazing. Aren't their faces sweet?

Very soft with nice crimp - excellent spinning quality fiber! I didn't purchase anything, though I was tempted by a bag of fawn-colored roving, and some amazing alpaca/copper socks!
http://www.alpacasav.com/alpacastore.htm

Here's Judy...

and here's me, feeding treats to the boys...

As we were leaving, a blue jay followed us! He sat on the post in front of my car, then jumped to my windshield, then to the top edge of my opened car door! I grabbed my camera, but by the time I turned it on, he had jumped to the ground next to my car. Bold blue jay!

Furoshiki

No, still not weaving, in spite of having two warped looms, ready and waiting. The weather here has felt like being in one long continuous hot flash, and I just haven't felt like weaving.

This post is about somebody else's weaving :-) and an idea that makes great use of narrow fabrics when you've already got too many scarves.

You have lots of options to try - narrow hem the edges..... create a lining the same way you make the body and hand stitch the lining into the bag. Easiest of all, you can stitch the lining to the fabric all around the entire rectangle. Then attach ties at the far edges of the a segments, and the far edges of the b segments, and tie them together. Instead of seaming, you can butt edges together and zigzag over the join.

For the handle, you can use a kumihimo braid, or a tabletwoven or inkle band, or even just braid together some shoelaces. :-)

Any other suggestions?

Naked and Knitting

Not me - aren't you relieved. :-)

I'm still resisting weaving for some strange reason. Like I'm waiting for some giant cue from the sky or something. It bugs me, but it is what it is, so I guess I'll wait till this resistance fades.

Plenty has been going on. I had my day in court last Friday. It was unpleasant but... I got a judgment in my favor. Not sure how much good that will do, since the company that owes me this money is apparently in dire straits. The judge was more sypathetic to them - which was really frustrating, but I keep reminding myself, I got the judgment, and that's all that counts.

Now to the good stuff. My birthday was Bastille Day - I had a marvelous time! My friend and neighbor Ann Marie went to my favorite museum with me - the Mingei in Balboa Park. We had lunch in the outdoor cafe by the art museum and just had a marvelous time! The Sunday before that, I had a fun lunch with my spinning buddies, Mary Dawn and Taryl. Taryl brought a delicious white chocolate and fruit cake.


It's been hotter than usual here in San Diego, and weather whimp that I am, I've definitely been in a low energy phase. Mary took me to a Padres game this past Sunday - it was Stitch and Pitch day - got this cool bag, started a simple knitting project to have something to take with me. We rode on the trolley - missed one exchange so we got to the game late, but that was okay. It was my first time riding on the trolley ( I live north of San Diego and it doesn't come this far up.) The Padres had a miserable game, which apparently wasn't a big surprise these days. Still, it was a fun afternoon in the sun. I like this simple scarf I'm working on - still using the turquoise alpaca I used on the last project, but this time I'm knitting a narrow lace scarf with a sort of feather and fan stitch.


And for the naked part - poor Joy has really suffered with the heat since her curly coat had grown so long. The groomer had a cancellation yesterday, so Joy got a super short summer cut - hence the nekkidness. Sure wish I could get my hair cut and look suddenly skinny.