NWRSA Conference
WARNING! There's lots of fiber-y blather below.
I spent last Thursday - Sunday at the NWRSA conference in Salem OR. [Or at least part of each of those days]. Thursday Ian & I rode down with Marilyn just after dropping P. off at school. We got there during the scheduled dinner when registration was closed, so we had sushi a few blocks away [oh the horrors]. We registered, met up with my MIL, I discovered that the one box I forgot to bring had my skein & knitting entries for the Gallery, and managed to actually spin a bit. [So NEXT year will be my first year entering. I tried...] Friday I volunteered to help set up the gallery in the morning, went back to MIL's for lunch & to put I down for a nap. We went back for a bit in the late afternoon before getting take-out for dinner. Ian likes yakisoba noodles!
Saturday I had a basket class in the morning lots of fun, and ended up with a good basket for bread or fruit - hardwood bottom, maybe 4" tall, 12" diameter at the top, 8" diameter at the bottom. My MIL got this as a thank you for the AMAZING amount of help she was in 1) watching Ian, [and later Patrick when he & Dan arrived late Friday night] 2) letting all of us stay at her house 3) letting me borrow her car to drive to & from conference. But if you get a chance to make a round, continuous-weave basket with a wooden base, I highly recommend it as fun & easy.
Saturday PM was a class on using colored rovings, and how different spinning & plying methods will affect the finished yarn. This was a drop spindle class, although nothing in it particularly precludes wheels. Useful, fun & I was only able to spin up 2 of the 14 samples. The other 12 samples are split off the roving, labeled & ready to spin & ply, (which is further than my neighbor got, so I'm feeling accomplished & organized) so it's a bit like homework. We got three different dye-ways of roving: Long color stretches, long & short, and random [kettle dyed]. Each was split into two equal lengths, which should give us each a sock [3 pairs]. however, as we're using one of each pair to make sample 14 yarns, I think there was a bit of an oversight. Oh well, I can probably resolve it by splitting the remaining sock's worth in half the long way, and plying it with another fiber.
D, P, I & MIL visited a bit between class & dinner - I. liked seeing the trains that go by Willamette U. on a frequent basis. P liked walking along all the walk-way walls. That evening, after the keynote speaker [they left the lights on, I got to knit!], I finished spinning singles of a dishwater grey wool with threads of teal, pink & yellow, and went on a quest for something to ply it with that would minimize the dishwater grey effect. I finally settled on a teal roving that shaded from bright teal that matched the threads fairly well [at least under gymnasium fluorescent lights] to almost navy.
Sunday I had a conference 2009 planning meeting from 9 - 10:50 [conference ends at 11:30], so I just squeezed in plying a small sample of the dishwater with the teal. I think I like it, but I want to knit up a swatch.
Loot:
* 8 oz of the shaded teal roving in a really soft wool.
* 1 oz crimson bamboo, slated for a knecklace that would coordinate with Marta's red belly dance costume. [I still need to figure out a good gold accent - either a ply, or beads.]
Stuff I want to get, possibly at Rhinebeck:
* Spinner's control card - this is a clear card with black printed lines to let you compare your single / plied yarn to calculated WPI. Given that I tend to spin once a month, this might be nice for more consistency.
* a wooden drop spindle, possibly Turkish, that weights in the neighborhood of 1.75 oz.
* more basket kits, similar to the one I wove, with a wooden base.
All in all, I'm looking forward to being able to ditch family responsibilities for conference weekend some year. It should be possible when I stop breastfeeding. This year, it seemed like a lot of sleep, hurry to grab breakfast & get there, have not quite enough fun, drive the 12 minutes home, Nurse Ian to sleep, & repeat. I'm sure this effect wasn't helped by Ian sleeping lousily - up crying every few hours; he doesn't usually do this at home.
I spent last Thursday - Sunday at the NWRSA conference in Salem OR. [Or at least part of each of those days]. Thursday Ian & I rode down with Marilyn just after dropping P. off at school. We got there during the scheduled dinner when registration was closed, so we had sushi a few blocks away [oh the horrors]. We registered, met up with my MIL, I discovered that the one box I forgot to bring had my skein & knitting entries for the Gallery, and managed to actually spin a bit. [So NEXT year will be my first year entering. I tried...] Friday I volunteered to help set up the gallery in the morning, went back to MIL's for lunch & to put I down for a nap. We went back for a bit in the late afternoon before getting take-out for dinner. Ian likes yakisoba noodles!
Saturday I had a basket class in the morning lots of fun, and ended up with a good basket for bread or fruit - hardwood bottom, maybe 4" tall, 12" diameter at the top, 8" diameter at the bottom. My MIL got this as a thank you for the AMAZING amount of help she was in 1) watching Ian, [and later Patrick when he & Dan arrived late Friday night] 2) letting all of us stay at her house 3) letting me borrow her car to drive to & from conference. But if you get a chance to make a round, continuous-weave basket with a wooden base, I highly recommend it as fun & easy.
Saturday PM was a class on using colored rovings, and how different spinning & plying methods will affect the finished yarn. This was a drop spindle class, although nothing in it particularly precludes wheels. Useful, fun & I was only able to spin up 2 of the 14 samples. The other 12 samples are split off the roving, labeled & ready to spin & ply, (which is further than my neighbor got, so I'm feeling accomplished & organized) so it's a bit like homework. We got three different dye-ways of roving: Long color stretches, long & short, and random [kettle dyed]. Each was split into two equal lengths, which should give us each a sock [3 pairs]. however, as we're using one of each pair to make sample 14 yarns, I think there was a bit of an oversight. Oh well, I can probably resolve it by splitting the remaining sock's worth in half the long way, and plying it with another fiber.
D, P, I & MIL visited a bit between class & dinner - I. liked seeing the trains that go by Willamette U. on a frequent basis. P liked walking along all the walk-way walls. That evening, after the keynote speaker [they left the lights on, I got to knit!], I finished spinning singles of a dishwater grey wool with threads of teal, pink & yellow, and went on a quest for something to ply it with that would minimize the dishwater grey effect. I finally settled on a teal roving that shaded from bright teal that matched the threads fairly well [at least under gymnasium fluorescent lights] to almost navy.
Sunday I had a conference 2009 planning meeting from 9 - 10:50 [conference ends at 11:30], so I just squeezed in plying a small sample of the dishwater with the teal. I think I like it, but I want to knit up a swatch.
Loot:
* 8 oz of the shaded teal roving in a really soft wool.
* 1 oz crimson bamboo, slated for a knecklace that would coordinate with Marta's red belly dance costume. [I still need to figure out a good gold accent - either a ply, or beads.]
Stuff I want to get, possibly at Rhinebeck:
* Spinner's control card - this is a clear card with black printed lines to let you compare your single / plied yarn to calculated WPI. Given that I tend to spin once a month, this might be nice for more consistency.
* a wooden drop spindle, possibly Turkish, that weights in the neighborhood of 1.75 oz.
* more basket kits, similar to the one I wove, with a wooden base.
All in all, I'm looking forward to being able to ditch family responsibilities for conference weekend some year. It should be possible when I stop breastfeeding. This year, it seemed like a lot of sleep, hurry to grab breakfast & get there, have not quite enough fun, drive the 12 minutes home, Nurse Ian to sleep, & repeat. I'm sure this effect wasn't helped by Ian sleeping lousily - up crying every few hours; he doesn't usually do this at home.