CNCH

This weekend was CNCH, the Conference of Northern California Handweavers.  I had a great time, took wonderful classes, strolled the market place, visited with old friends and made new ones.  The highlight of my weekend was the 9 hours of instruction I was participate in.  I took 3 classes taught by Judith MacKenzie McQuin: Spinning a Fine Thread, Spinning for Color and Fat Fulled and Fabulous.  Judith is an absolute wealth of information and if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from her I highly recommend it.  I also love her book: "The Intentional Spinner." 

In Spinning a fine thread we learned how to adjust our wheels to spin a fine, and very fine, yarn.  I have spun fine yarns before but nothing of this caliber.  It was a real treat working with the fine fibers she supplied us with to create these fine yarns.  First a baby alapaca, silk cashmere and even bison.  After a break for lunch and travels around the market I enjoyed an afternoon of Spinning for color.  We chose 5 different colored rovings to create a marled yarn and learned a new technique for spinning across the different rovings for a special effect.  We moved on and learned to cable these yarns.  We also made specialty yarns using fluff from an aplaca blend batt and mohair curls.

Sunday we went to the opposite end of the spectrum and made bulky yarns.  At one time, when I was a new spinner, making bulky yarns was easy, now it is a bigger challenge.  Again, learning how to properly adjust the wheel is key in making the yarn you want.  Next I want to take Judith's wheel mechanics class...
I will be posting photos of the practice yarns and then creating my own yarns, some of which will find their way into my etsy shop.

The Saturday night banquet was great fun, as was the presentation by Syne Mitchell, creator and editor of weavezine, check it out at www.weavezine.com. 

Spring!

I just got back from visiting family in New York and Rhode Island. In one week we went from winter to spring. It was cold when I arrived, then the rains came. It rained and rained and rained; roads flooded, train service was curtailed and we had plenty of time to stay in the house and work on craft projects. The dining room table was transformed into a workshop. I was busy making beaded stitchmarkers, earrings featuring sheep, spinning wheels and knitting charms. It was fun and relaxing. When the rains stopped the sun came out and the weather really warmed up so we went on a little road trip to visit my niece and bring my daughter back to school in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, our favorite place to buy jewelry supplies, Wolf Myrow, was flooded due to the rains and was closed. Hopefully they will dry out with minimal damage to their wonderful and eclectic stock.

The etsy shop is stocked and now that I am back I have more items to photo and list. Stay tuned.
Here are some photos of some of the natural dyed yarns that I am in the process of posting.
www.twistedsun.etsy.com

 ... and yummy merino sea cell

etsy shop

I have finally set up and started to stock the etsy shop.  I had a hard time deciding on whether to start on etsy, artfire or both.  Etsy won out!  I also have the artfire shop set up but it is not yet stocked.   For now I am going with the etsy store and will be working on getting it fully stocked.  Please check it out at www.twistedsun.etsy.com and let me know what you think.  My biggest challenge is the photography, getting a good clear photo with true colors has been difficult.  I am hoping for sun tomorrow so I can take photos in natural light.

I was so excited when I received my first etsy sale.  The first item to be sold was the cool jewel roving, definitely one of my favorites. 

Here are some photos from the etsy shop:

more Stitches photos

more goodies! 

Thank you to everyone who helped set up, worked at and shopped at the Twisted Sunshine booth at Stitches West, a great time was had by all.  This was our first big show and we shared a booth with Slipped Stitches Studio.  The booth was chock full of fiber, yarns, crazy spinning batts, sheep and spinning earrings, counting bracelets and project bags.  Everyone loved the beautiful Kundert spindles we carried and we had the opportunity to teach several people how to drop spindle.  To those who bought spindles and those buy a spindle in the future, my offer to teach you, or follow up on the spindling lessons given at Stitches still is open.  Spinning is fun and relaxing, add in the beatuiful dyed rovings and batts of Twisted Sunshine and you have the makings of a great project.

Here are some of our yarns and crazy batts

Busy getting ready for Stitches.  Wonderful friends helping me over the weekend.  The house is a complete disaster and I am wondering how everything will get done.  Here are some photos taken by Alison the master skeinwinder, on Sunday.

getting ready

I have been busy getting ready for Stitches West.  Dying up a storm, making batts, spinning kits, felting kits, getting yarns ready.  This is the last weekend to put the finishing touches on everything.  I haven't gotten a chance to take photos, will do that this weekend and post them. 

The beautiful weather earlier this week was perfect for hanging out the rovings and yarn so they were able to dry.  The weather was clear and warm, went up to 69 degrees.  That is the wonderful California weather I remember.  This winter has been mostly rain, and a lot of it, so it was nice to enjoy the sun and some early spring fever.  Well the clouds are back for the weekend, so the last of the dying will be drying in the house.

The stormy weather inspired a lot of the colorways I was working on.  I dye in small batches so most of the pieces are unique with only a few of each color but always with coordinating colors.  The natural dyes all go well with each other and it is fun to mix and match.  I have taken strips from several different rovings and alternated them when spinning to create beautiful yarns.  I will have some samples with me.

I want to thank all my knitting friends for their help and support.  The Monday night Walnut Creek Knitters and the Thursday night East Bay knitters.  You guys really rock.

Busy weekend - hope to update photos by Sunday.  I have held off on stocking the etsy store until after Stitches, I want to have my stock on hand for this event and then will post on etsy.

Please come and see me and Slipped Stitches in booth 843 at Stitches West - See you there!