Another Kind of Swap

I've been reading about Samurai Knitter and Historic Stitcher's swap, and realized I just did some swapping, too!

Last night was my fiber arts guild's annual auction. The idea is to bring in anything from your fiber arts stash that isn't thrilling you or calling your name any more and donate it to the auction. Then we bid on and go home with the things that are calling our names. All of the auction money goes into the guild treaury.

First we eat cookies.

Harder than you'd think. The cookies were excellent, but . . . bride? or groom?

Then you have to steel yourself and bite their little heads off.

And of course since fiber arts people are a tactile tribe, first we have to go around and pet things before we settle down and start bidding.

We begged the member who brought chocolate-covered strawberries last year to bring some more. She brought a whole tray! Packed three to a baggie.

The auctioneer used them to help some of the slower things go. As in, "Not just a basket, but a basket with some yarn in it."

[Silence.]

"A basket with some yarn and chocolate-covered strawberries in it?"

"Okay, a dollar."

Fortunately no one is allergic to chocolate or strawberries, and she cleared out fabric, handmade paper, baskets, magazines, knitting needles, yarn -- yarn?

Okay, I did buy some yarn. (And strawberries.) And I donated some yarn that hasn't spoken to me for months and years.

I got this:

The sky-blue yarn is 2 ounces of Jaggerspun Zephyr. The storm-cloud blue yarn is 1400 meters of laceweight merino. Lovely, lovely stuff.

Trust me, you do not want to know how little much I paid for this.

This year, I even bought extra strawberries to share with the family. Once again, we ate them before I thought of getting pictures!

Am I Done Sulking Yet?

I'm not sure. But you need not suffer for it while we look for a junkyar -- er, "recycled" Honda Civic taillight lens.

(By the way, in case you should ever need to know this, clear packaging tape works fairly well to hold a shattered taillight cover together and keep you from getting a ticket.)

Here are some step photos from finishing my beaded button.

Top left, beading almost finished.

Top right, beading finished.

Bottom left, circle cut out and interfacing cut away on the back.

Bottom right, fabric gathered around the covered-button form, ready to snap the back on.

And the finished button. I meant this to be a yin-yang symbol, but I didn't realize that I should have beaded on either side of my guideline with light and dark beads, instead of beading right on the line with dark beads. So I ended up with my yin and yang out of balance.

This is probably very telling, considering how last week went.

Anyway. I see that as promised, photos have been posted from the class.

In her handout, our teacher suggested we use a "bead gravy" mix, a mix of small beads. Now I've gone and Googled "bead gravy," and uh-oh. Look at all those gorgeous colors of beads.

I Love My Fiber Arts Guild

And one of the things I love about my fiber arts guild is that the members do so many different interesting things that they are willing to share.

Last night's program was bead embroidery on fabric. We each got a kit with beads, fabric, needle, etc. to make a circle of beaded fabric to cover a button form.

The beautiful red button in progress is not my work -- it is one many buttons by the member teaching the class. Along with finished buttons, she brought beaded pins, ornaments, cards, and a gorgeous beaded purse.

I have quantities of beads in my stash from using them in tatting. Up until now, I've been able to resist buying more because of how few I use compared to how many I've bought.

Now how am I supposed to discourage myself from buying more beads?!? Because it looks like I need more sizes and colors, not fewer.

She blogs at Crackpot Quilters and promises to put up pictures of work from the class.

Meanwhile, here is the elegant quilted, beaded bag she brought to show us:

One Ornament Exchange Down

I finished tatting the fourth motif and got my exchange ornament stretched and stiffened just in time for our Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild meeting.

I guess I am still in the ball-making mode -- last year's exchange ornament was Eve Clemenger's knitted swirl ball.
I remember that I meant to knit one for our tree, but never got back to it.

We had some social time, a potluck with incredible food, show and tell (I brought the double-knitted mittens), and our ornament exchange.

Show and tell with this group is always a lot of fun! I can't believe I didn't think to bring my camera. We have doll artists, quilters, paper makers, embroiderers, needle felters, crocheters. I saw some fascinating art dolls, and crocheted finger puppets that were art dolls in their own right, Hardanger embroidery, a needle-felted Father Christmas, a sculptural art quilt. Lovely stuff. No camera!

Last of all we did our ornament exchange, and I brought this little guy home.
If you are going to participate in the ornament exchange, you bring a wrapped ornament with your name or card inside. All of the ornaments are put in a basket, and if you bring one, you get to choose one, no peeking!

I picked a beautiful shiny blue bag, and this cute little snowman was inside! Our son was asleep when I got home, so he has not seen him yet, but I know he's going to love putting Mr. Snowman on the tree when we decorate.

Hang On Tight!

It's gonna be a rough ride!

I'm in full-on prima diva mode at the moment, in preparation for the double knitting class I'll be giving tonight.

There will be tantrums. There will be histrionics. There will be meltdowns.

Shrieking at the understudy, throwing shoes, sobbing that I can't go on, hunting desperately for things I absolutely need [like an understudy?] . . . I'm telling you, it's not pretty around here right now.

I know, a 100% introvert giving classes? Seems kind of paradoxical, doesn't it? A common misconception about introverts is that we just need to get over being shy.

On the other hand, a lot of people I know through my various fiber interests would be incredulous if I told them I was an introvert -- I speak up, I smile, I crack jokes -- how could I be an introvert?

I like this short definition best: an introvert is someone who is recharged by being alone.

Articles about introverts are easy to find with Google:

Introverts in an Extrovert's World

Caring for Your Introvert

and an interview with the author of Caring for Your Introvert.

Tonight. Herrick main library in Holland, Michigan, downstairs auditorium. I'll be the one in the "Introvert" shirt.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go off and have me some hysterics.

I'd Forget My Head

. . . if it wasn't attached at the neck. (Gingerly feels neck, to make sure it really is.)

Honestly, I was searching for a blog topic yesterday, and felt relieved to find my pictures. I totally blanked on the fact that yesterday was the last Lakeshore Fiber Arts guild meeting of the year!

Our meeting year runs from September to June, with the summer off. Our last meeting was an auction, so I brought a couple of cones of yarn/thread I'd probably never use.

I meant to bring an embroidery frame I had acquired to the auction, and although I left it right by the door -- with my spending money! -- I forgot that, too!

Our rule was "If you bring things, you have to buy things." Fortunately I had a few dollars in my wallet besides the money I meant to bring, because I spent them all.

I mostly bought yarn, a whole slew of leftover balls of sock yarn.

Plain foot, fancy cuff? Plain heel and toe, fancy foot and cuff? Or maybe just a pair of jumble socks?

But I also bought a sweater-in-progress with the pattern (a copy of Dalebarn No. 35) and yes! that is an Inox 24-inch US size 6 circular knitting needle. I won't even admit how little I spent on these things.

And you can't see the chocolate-dipped strawberries I bought.

Because I ate them.

Teamwork: It's Wonderful

Unfortunately no pictures, but last night members of the Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild met and cut paper for our Kinderplaats activity during Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan, on Saturday.

We are a small guild, so we will only be there Saturday. But with many hands (and papercutters), hundreds of sheets of paper were precut in about an hour.

I sorely missed my camera, because our program was "Show and Tell," and members brought their own work to show off and talk about.

Wow.

A beautiful entrelac scarf/shawl, some absolutely gorgeous beading, needle-felted creatures, altered books, handmade paper, and pictorial double-weaving were only some of the cool things we admired and passed around last night.

I brought the Pi shawl and my Sampler M, but I could (almost) have traded for that entrelac shawl!

Jekyll and Hyde Weather

We've been enjoying mostly-mild weather for nearly a month, and obviously the weather is now descending into its depressive phase. Yesterday at 4pm the temperature was 69 degrees F. (21 C.). This morning by 4am the temperature had dropped to 35 degrees F. (2 C.), where it remains.

Good thing I have a foot dog to keep me warm!

We have a high wind advisory, 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 50 to 55 mph possible. The highest gusts are expected right along the Lake Michigan shoreline -- that would be where I live!

And if the cold air and high wind wasn't enough (remember, this week is Spring break for our son), the forecast also says "Windy. A chance of snow showers in the morning...then snow showers likely. Areas of blowing snow. Much colder. Snow accumulation an inch or less. Highs in the upper 30s. Temperature steady or slowly falling through the day. West winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts to around 50 mph. Chance of snow 70 percent."

From nearly 70 degrees to snow, ha ha, very funny, Spring. Yesterday I was transplanting French violets in my bare feet, and today I'm worrying about the cherry blossoms (not) coping with 20-degree temperatures.

I have a fiber arts guild meeting tonight, and I have a couple more rows to go on my nametag -- front and back shown via the magic of photo editing programs.

This is non-reversible double knitting using DMC Cebelia in size 10 and two of the red 00 needles from the Susan Bates "sock set".

Another Almost Finished Item

With the hat finished, the next thing to call my name was this knitted cloth, patterned after a dishcloth my husband rescued from the armory last year. (That armory has been closed by the state, and I'm pretty sure this would have been one of many items that went into the big dumpster.)

At top right, the original (the "X" cloth) and at bottom left, my version (the "O" cloth), along with some of the charting I did along the way. The original is knitted in something very limp and drapey. I used crochet cotton, and my finished cloth is much springy-er, much livelier, than the original.

I started knitting this last March, and last worked on it in November. I think it picked up some negative knitting mojo when I took it along one day while I had van repairs done. They took a long time, and I worked on it until I was fed up with it. But now the border is knitted and it only needs casting-off.

Hovering just out of camera range was Ajax.

I tried to catch him with his big nose right on the edge of the original knitted dishcloth, but he was too quick for me!

Fiber and Lace Events

The next week or so will be busy: tonight is my Lakeshore Fiber Arts guild meeting at the Herrick Library in Holland, Michigan, at 6:30pm. Next Monday is the West Michigan Lace Group meeting at the Byron Township library in Byron Center, Michigan.

The Great Lakes Lace Group is having their "Spring Fling" in Grand Rapids in April, and the West Michigan Lace Group will host a trunk show with Kathy Kirchner in May.

(I better start saving my pennies!)

Christmas Exchange Ornament

I forgot to get a picture of the snowflake I tatted in silver DMC embroidery thread for the West Michigan Lace Group exchange Monday night, but at least that reminded me to take a picture of this knitted "Swirl Ball", my exchange ornament for the fiber arts guild meeting.

The pattern, Copyright (c) Eve Clevenger 1999, can be found here at the Knitlist free pattern page.

In exchange, I got Jennifer Gould's Santa (or elf) ornament. The flash really washes out his expression, but it's too dark here today to get a picture without the flash. I wish you could see how lively the eyes look in real life! They are amazing.

Yesterday's Latvian mitten post is a hard act to follow when I've done hardly any knitting lately. I got a couple of rows knitted on the blue waffle scarf, bound off the swirl ball, and that's about it.

"She opened the door of the art house!"

The Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild met last night and made fabric postcards, guided by multimedia artist Kelli Perkins.

Kelli had a wonderful display table of some of her other art, including pillows, jewelry, altered books, and artist trading cards. You can see some of them here.

I really enjoyed looking through the altered books, and handling a cloth book that I thought of as a "cloth book for grown-ups". Beads, buttons, and all kinds of ephemeral treasures were included in these books, lots of textures and visual delights. I wish I'd brought my camera, but you can see a lot of her work at her blogs.

I picked up a lot of ideas for using some of the yarn, tatting threads, and beads that I've accumulated over the years and not known what to do with. Not to mention I gained an excuse for buying beautiful fabric, which I never really had before (because my sewing is pretty rough and unskillful). Uh-oh.

If her name sounds familiar, maybe you have seen it recently in the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors.

One of the things I have always loved about my other group, the West Michigan Lace Group, was that I'd go to a meeting with something to show and tell about that I'd been doing, and I'd see sixty-eleven different things that other members were doing, and go home with my brain fizzing and sparking with new ideas.

The Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild has been a pretty small group for the last couple of years, but we're making a concerted effort to expand again, and the monthly programs have been part of that effort. And after last night's meeting, wow, did I go home with a head full of ideas.

I really love the cross-pollination that happens when artists in different media get together. For example, Kelli was at our meeting last month when doll artist Jennifer Gould talked about discharge dyeing using bleach pens.

Kelli took this idea, played with discharge dyeing, and used some of her discharged fabric in fabric postcards.

The title of this post comes from the phrase on the fourth postcard down, which I instantly loved. "She opened the door of the art house!"

And I'll bet there was quite the party going on in there!

Happy Hallowe'en!

I love Halloween, a season where no one expects me to cook, buy presents, or decorate my house. Even before we had kids, I always carved a pumpkin and bought some candy, even though the only kids that have ever braved our driveway were in the car of a friend of my husband's.

Now that I have a kid, I have an even better excuse. At our son's behest, I bought one of those pumpkin-carving kits, and every year he picks a drawing out of it, and I carve it. After all the lifting, pounding, drilling, and snipping I did, pumpkin-carving was about the last straw for my sore hands.

He and his dad went to a "Great Pumpkin" event at the farm market down the road a couple of weekends ago. For $2, all the kids got to pick a numbered pumpkin out of the patch and win a prize. They ran through a corn maize (actually it was sorghum). Big bins of apples and squash were for sale, and corn shocks decorated with orange and purple lights were tied along the edges of the parking lot.

The pumpkin they picked was an excellent carving pumpkin, with a nice thick shell. Hard to carve, but stable, so I didn't have to worry about hacking paws or tails off. In years past, we've grown our own, sometimes even those white pumpkins, but this year we didn't. (White pumpkins, by the way, are orange enough inside that they glow beautifully when you carve them and put a tealight candle inside.)

After I gutted it, my son said, "And save some of the seeds so we can grow next year's," so I guess I better not roast and eat them all.

In fiber-y news:

Tomorrow night is my Lakeshore fiber arts guild meeting, and this Saturday I'll be at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum's Festival of the Arts (12-4pm, following the parade), along with other members of the West Michigan Lace Group.

Sampler M: Pattern 16 is up, but I have not worked it yet. Maybe today!

Happy Birthday to Me!

As I try to get materials ready for Vineyard Raids III. And bake brownies for the school's bake sale at the modular train exhibit Saturday. And sneak in some knitting and reading time.

Last night I went to a meeting of the Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild in Holland, Michigan. We had a presentation by Jennifer Gould, a charter member of the guild, on printing and painting clothing.

Jennifer wore a jacket she had made out of a sweatshirt and explained how she made it. (It's the one shown in the "Printing and Painting Clothing" on her web page.) She talked about learning to paint, stamp, and discharge cloth and clothing.

She also brought some of the art dolls and discharged and collaged fabric she has been working on this summer. It's always fascinating to see what she's been working on, and the directions she has taken some of the techniques we experimented with at our guild meetings.

I sat and worked on my Pi shawl. I finished the sixth pattern repeat and the 48th row of this round. The next step is a doubling row in the half-circle part.

This shawl is on two US size 6 needles. On the left is a Susan Bates Silvalume. On the right is a Susan Bates Silverado. The Silverado has a nice limp black cable and super-slippery points. The Silvalume has a lively cable that refuses to lay flat.

Tired Knitter

Everything I knitted for the county fair has been delivered: purple socks, knitted & felted bag, knitted doily (the "Sun in Splendor" doily), and three small Christmas ornaments (a tiny Christmas stocking, a small pointed-at-both-ends round ornament, and a little double-knitted tree).

Pictures will have to wait on those until I either get to the fair when it opens (and remember to bring the camera), or I pick them back up after the fair.

That's what I've been doing instead of blogging: knitting frantically away on tiny little things to get them finished in time.

I had a delay over the Labor Day weekend, when I got stung on the wrist by a yellow jacket, Vespula sp..

Instantly the bite swelled up, and it was on the bony knob of my wrist bone. Shortly the rest of my wrist, the back of my hand, and slowly my whole forearm swelled up. My knuckles disappeared, and even my knobbly wrist bone.

I found it is very hard to knit when your hand is so swollen you can't make a fist! I took off my wedding ring for fear I would wake up and not be able to remove it.

Meanwhile, I kept knitting. I wanted to finish my fair entries, plus knitting distracted me from the pain and the itching. Itching, itching, lots of itching. When I'm knitting, I couldn't scratch, and scratching at it seemed to cause more swelling.

Today my hand finally matches the other hand again.

Tonight I went to a meeting of the Lakeshore Fiber Arts guild, and we did a little wet-felting with feltmaker Kelly Brandt. I think I finally have a use for a couple of Shetland fleeces I picked up in the spring!

Kelly's philosophy of making things is a lot like mine: when asked which technique she preferred, wet felting or needle felting, she said that they each have a place. Like a chain saw and a hand saw, each one is useful for certain jobs.

It's not an "or" thing, either wet felting OR needle felting. It's a design decision.

That's very much how I think. I don't have to pick one. I can use both, plus other techniques, like knitting and then felting.

Tuesday was Library Day

I picked my son up from school, and we went to the library. I got out Meg Swanson's "Knitting" and some fiction, which I spent Tuesday evening and yesterday morning reading. Then I knitted a couple of rows so the "Two Socks on One Set of Needles" wouldn't get lonely.

My fiber arts guild meeting was Wednesday evening. We watched a presentation about the Handweavers Guild of America's convention, Convergence 2006, to be held from 25 June to 1 July in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Many of the slides showed the work of people who will be giving seminars or teaching workshops. Some of them looked fascinating: ". . . history and trends in art knitting . . .", "Dyeing With Shaving Cream", marbling on a silk scarf.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, registration is out of my price range: $365 for HGA members, $425 for non-members. Yowch. I guess I will have to spring for a $10 day pass and just check out the art exhibits and vendor hall.

So it was kind of a bittersweet meeting. After the slide show (okay, powerpoint presentation -- this is the 21st century, after all), I was all charged up to go, but the price is right out of our budget.

I did get to indulge in a little "show and tell". I hadn't done any needle felting, but I brought the rainbow net, some tatting in the machine quilting thread, and the "two socks on one set of needles". Jan brought the needle-felted bear she had started at the last meeting, and finished over the course of the month. He came out very well!

Saturday we are supposed to meet and finish our discharge-dyeing swatches that will go out in the Michigan League of Handweavers newsletter. I will have to take some pictures of our experimental ones that we made over the course of last year.

So today I better get busy and knit!