Spinning Through Time

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When I was about to turn thirty, I freaked out a bit. I thought it was the end of my youth, and here I was, a corporate drone. None of the big accomplishments I’d expected of myself had come to pass. My life, I figured, was pretty much over.

And then a miracle occurred. My thirtieth birthday happened to be on a Tuesday, and I took the day off from work to attend my spinning group. There was a collection of women ranging from just-turned-thirty to eighty-something, all laughing heartily and making yarn, telling stories and planning adventures.

I don’t recall if on that day I fessed up to it being my birthday. I do know those women, whether they were aware of it or no, gave me the best birthday gift ever: the sure knowledge that having fun isn’t tied to a calendar. That a bawdy joke is still funny when you’re eighty, and that you can be passionate and fierce at any age.

I don’t go to that spinning group anymore, but every year around the middle of February, I tend to find myself in the company of fiber artists. Mostly they are women, but also a few treasured men courageous enough to wander over to the women’s hut.

Suzanne Pederson and Corney Talley are two amazing women who put on one of the best fiber retreats around: The Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. It’s not the biggest, it’s not the most posh, but it’s got a lot of wonderful people who show up to have a good time. And truly, isn’t that what the best parties are made of?

I’m sure that they’ve got their own reasons for hosting the retreat (something about empowering women, having fun, learning new skills, or some such) but every year, I secretly treat it as my own private birthday celebration.

I don’t tell anyone that my birthday is impending, because that’s not important. But I sit and bask in the glow of women doing what they love. (And perhaps take a few extra liberties while shopping in the vendor marketplace.)

This year, I had the great good fortune to spend my birthday celebration:

1) Teaching folks how to weave on a rigid-heddle loom

The cool thing about teaching for a second year at Madrona, is that students from last year came back with their scarves and stories of how much fun they were having with weaving. I got told tales of new eight-shaft floor looms (yes, more than one got bit by the weaving bug), how their first-ever handwoven scarf had won a blue ribbon at the fair, of their teaching their children to weave, and so on. Seeing how happy and excited they were about their new craft was the best possible feedback a teacher could get.

And then there were this year’s first-timers, a wonderful group of folks who were so passionate about their projects that they would not leave. I was happy to stay with them after class, because I have been there, eager to finish up and not wanting to quit. But when one of the students announced that staying was keeping me from the instructor’s dinner, they sent me up to eat, and kept weaving. When I came back late that night expecting to have an hour’s work of straightening up ahead of me. I discovered they had: cleaned the entire room and left a pile of candy treats. A wonderful group of women, and the scarves were stunning, too.

This year I also taught an intermediate class, and was humbled by the bright women who showed up with amazing samples and ideas. As is often the case, I learned as much as I taught. (They were also very kind when I totally had a brain freeze over Danish Medallions. Note to self: it is the techniques that you assume are “too easy to mess up” that will totally bite you in the butt when demoing them to a room full of people.)

2) Demoing weaving in the atrium

Madrona has various places where people congregate to to fiber arts in company. One of these is a brightly lit atrium that is near the classrooms and the fiber marketplace. At lunch they sell sandwiches.

I was scheduled to demo Saturday and Sunday morning. Last year I went all out with tons of samples, multiple looms, and a big display. This year I decided to keep things low key. I set up my Baby Wolf loom with a project that was entertaining and yet suitable for first-time weavers and wove, inviting folks to “give the loom a go” when they stopped by and expressed interest.

I ended up (entirely through luck and laziness) picking the absolutely perfect project for the demo. Because I was rushed for time setting up the loom, I snatched up a weaving kit I’d bought from Just Our Yarn at Convergence. It was two skeins of hand-painted 10/2 Tencel that were woven in an eight-shaft advancing twill. I’d already wound the warp during one of my warp-winding jags (do you ever find yourself enthralled by winding warps and unable to stop, or is that just me?) so it was ready to go and saved a lot of time.

I warped the loom with handpainted yarn in blues and greens, and wove it off in a yarn painted in fuschias and oranges. The handpainted yarns made the textile beautiful, the advancing twill kept the handpaints from being plaid-y, and the combination of the two was complex enough they totally hid any mistakes from starting the pattern in the wrong place or going back the wrong way.

And the reason this was brilliant was that folks who stopped by for the demo could concentrate on the process of weaving, and not worry about (or even see) any mistakes they might have been making. (And it totally hid the mistakes I made because I was explaining and weaving at the same time. ;> )

I set up the eight-shaft twill in a walking pattern that folks quickly picked up without memorizing or needing to look at their feet. Even the the two little girls (two and four?) who stopped by to weave were able to get it going (though I did have to help the smaller of them work the treadles.)

A great project for a demo. It was complicated enough to be cool, and yet desceptively easy. (As an extra bonus treat, when I took the fabric off the loom, I discovered it is irridescent.)

So I spent the mornings that weekend hanging out in the atrium, weaving in company with spinners and knitters, and inviting folks to try out weaving: soul-satisfying fun.

3) Learning Viking knitting

Elsebeth Lavold’s Designer’s Choice: The Viking Knits Collection is one of those books that I saw and loved nearly every pattern in the book. The other was Alice Starmore’s The Celtic Collection, which I bought before I even knew how to knit, it was that lovely.

(The Viking Knits Collection is sadly out of print, but Lavold has a similar book: Viking Patterns for Knitting)

I’ve owned The Viking Knits Collection for some years now, but have been too intimidated by the knotwork to start any of the projects (I know. But we’re all afraid of what we don’t know how to do), so I took a class from Elsebeth to get me over all that.

The class was great. I now know how to design my own viking-technique cables from a sketch (how cool is that) and I ended up sitting next to a brilliant and talented woman who graciously acted as crib notes for this beginning knitter and also enlightened me to the fact that I’d been doing SSK’s twisted lo these many years.

Um, oops.

4) Shopping in the marketplace

The only downside to hanging out with cool fiber people, is that they are total enablers and will drag you to the skeins of luscious yarns you somehow missed on every single circuit through the dealer’s room, and encourage you to buy them. Hmm, wait-a-second…downside? Perhaps not.

At the Carolina Homespun booth I succumbed to some 120/2 silk hand-dyed by Redfish Dyeworks in wee little color-wheel skeins. Are they not lovely?
	I replenished my hand-dyed 10/2 Tencel supply at Just Our Yarn. Having woven off two skeins in the demo, this seemed only fair, and not stash-buildy at all.
And at the Crown Mountain Farms booth I bought two ounces of my favoritest spinning fiber in the whole world: 50% Tussah Silk 50% Cashmere, dyed by Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks.
	With the last bits of birthday money, I bought a Kathyrn Alexander thumb-only glove kit. I’ve been wanting to try some of her knitting with singles, and also wanting to make gloves, and this seemed the best of both worlds. Also, I can use the leftover yarn in tapestry weaving.

Many, many other wonderful things that happened at Madrona, too many to mention without writing a novel. Let me just say that, although I know it wasn’t intended as such, this year’s conference was a wonderful way for me to celebrate my birthday and the perfect start to my thirty-ninth year.

Here’s a montage of pictures to give you some idea of the other things I saw: