Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Ventura County Spinners and Weavers

I mentioned last week in my Friday Fave Five that I had been to the Ventura County Spinners and Weavers Guild Open House. The open house event is mostly an opportunity to browse and buy fiber, books, and spinning and weaving accesories. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, ran in to several friends and chatted with them as I eyed the fibers and finished projects.


There was a vendor selling spools of yarn for weaving. I loved the vibrant colors and thought about how I could move my belongings around in the house to accomodate setting up my weaving loom. So far, I haven't come up with a good plan, although I keep thinking, "If I got rid of half my books and bookcases or sold the piano, I would have the space. Or maybe I could set up the loom in the kitchen; no one would mind, would they?"




I settled for purchasing some soft grey alpaca/merino blend and I've already spun it up and decided that it wants to be a scarf knitted in a lace pattern.


The 4 oz. of silk/merino blend is absolutely wonderful to spin. It just glides through my fingers. I tried to photograph it so the colors -the blues and purples- would be visible in the best way. This photo is almost exactly true to color on my screen. It does not show as much of the purple as there actually is in the skein. I've spun and plied one little section and oh yes! it's amazing! I'm thinking the 4 oz. will make a couple of scarves.


Now that my busy time at school is done (I finished testing the last of the students I needed to work with this afternoon), I'm hoping I'll have some afternoons to sit on my porch in the pleasant Southern California autumn sunshine with my cup of tea and my spinning wheel.
I have not posted an update about the Doing Not Thinking Challenge for a while. I have been thinking about what to do next. I have accomplished all but one of my goals, which was sewing the skirt for Kiti. I decided to wait until spring to sew it because it's white and more appropriate for spring and summer wear. I have had a goal for YEARS of organizing all the photos and putting them into albums. I have boxes and boxes of photos from my parents, grandparents, and other ancestors. I am tentatively putting the photo project on my challenge list. Any suggestions, ideas, recommendations would be welcome. This project is an overwhelming one for me.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

What lovely colors! I hope you enjoy your upcoming afternoons very soon. :)

Unknown said...

Beautiful and vibrant coloured yarns...glad you had a good time, sure is better than spinning dog wool hehe...big hugs :D

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the photo organizing! It sounds like quite a task. How are you going to organize - by date, by person? Just curious

ellen b. said...

Beautiful yarn. Oh my organizing old photos. How I wish someone wrote exactly who everyone was in the old photos we have from Verna. I've organized photos in years, then months, and just put them in those nice file folders for photos before...With older photos you might have to sort them into decades and years instead of months :0)

Knitting Linguist said...

Ooh, gorgeous fiber! I can't wait to see it spun up :) As for photos, I'm not very good at that, either, so the best I can do is to cheer from the sidelines!

Flower said...

I have enjoyed hearing about your visit to the Spinners and Weavers! Of all the "shows" I've been to...not all that many...I feel such warmth and connection to the "Fiber" people. Everyone is so happy and content! Love the yarn!! The colors are perfect for you and it calls for something light and feminine. Can't wait to see what you do!!
I've started in on photos...it's overwhelming to me..so if anyone passes on any good ideas..let me know! :) My photo files start with 1978 and go to 2008!

Cindy Garber Iverson said...

You made me giggle with your mental figuring on how you could move things and get rid of things to accommodate a loom. I do the same thing with my art equipment... and I've got a studio already!

The grey and green is just beautiful made up. It looks so soft and dreamy.

Cindy

Bethany said...

I wish I could have gone with you! The spools of yarn are so beautiful! I didn't know you could weave! I love woven cloth...LOVE! And the other fibers are beautiful too! As far as photos, that is what everyone says... I used to teach scrapbooking back when it was a novel idea to most people! And I have a closet full of photos and empty scrapbooks! Organizing them into different folders depending on year or theme is the easiest way. You need to get them all in one place. I wouldn't necessarily worry about doing all the cutesy stuff, especially with older photos. Save the fun papers, etc. for your grandson's book! Just make sure you document everyone's names and the dates you remember and anything you can think of that your grandson might be interested in about 40 years from now. It will mean a lot to him to have his family history recorded that way. And one last thing-- most scrapbooking things are now archival and won't damage your photos, but if you may want to remove them later (or be able to take them out to copy for whatever reason), use those little corners that you slip the photo into...the old-fashioned looking ones. I wish I had done more of my older photos that way now. And if you have newspaper clippings, photocopy them because the newspaper won't last. If you have a scanner and the time, there's always digital scrapbooking too! Hope that helps!

Islandsparrow said...

Photo organizing - I made very good progress this summer but it is a lot of work. I did a bit at a time so if you have place to spread them out and leave them it would help. I separated mine by where we lived over the years as well as summer vacations and then tried to put them in order by year.

Your yarn is gorgeous!

Tracy said...

Oh, that looks like huge fun! I would love to try spinning and dyeing sometime...Enjoy your organizing. :o) Happy Days ((HUGS))

Elizabeth said...

Looking at craft supplies always makes one want to get creative.....
such infinite possibilities.
Greetings from New York.

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Those were beautiful yarns! My mother-in-law had a loom when she lived in Italy and my husband has memories of playing under it when he was a child. i still have some tablecloths she hand loomed over 50 years ago!

I was good about putting photographs in albums when my children were young, but for some reason I stopped when they were in high school on wards, so I have many envelopes full of photos too! I think the hardest thing is to just get started -- just to make a commitment of an hour every weekend to getting some sorting and some put into books. Little by little it'll get finished. Now if I could only follow my own advice ;-)

roxie said...

The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Get some file folders and a box to keep them in, and set aside a time every week when you will chew another mouthful of that elephant. Again, don't think - DO.

I set up my loom on the porch when it's warm enough to be outside. Is there a sheltered place outside you could weave? If not, set it up in the kitchen and just hammer down on the work. You can edge around it for a few days.

The silk is gorgeous!!!