Golden Gate Fiber Institute, Part II

Want to know more about the woman behind the Golden Gate Fiber Institute (GGFI), Morgaine Wilding? The current issue (Summer, 2008) of Wild Fibers magazine has a great interview with Morgaine, who is the owner of San Francisco-based Carolina Homespun. Morgaine explains her thinking behind a week-long institute. She wanted to give participants a long enough learning experience so we could learn the skill not only in our heads, but in our hands. Often these kinds of workshops range in length from 3 hours to 2 days. At the GGFI, each class provided 18 hours plus of instruction over the course of 6 days from July 28th to August 3rd (2008). Morgaine is also committed to seeing that traditional fiber arts continue into the future.
We arrived on Monday night, August 25th at the YMCA Marin County Outdoor Education Center, which is in the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, part of the Marin Headlands at Bonita Point. This natural area overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, as it crosses San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. We were also very near the Bonita Point Lighthouse, and hiking trails in the highlands.
Every morning I had a natural dyeing class with Darlene Hayes, who is the person behind Nature’s Palette’s Yarns and Hand Jive. Some of you may be familiar with her popular pattern Breakfast at the Café du Monde gloves (yes I bought some Nature's Palette to make them). Darlene lives in northern California, where she works in her home studio. She collects some of the dyestuffs from local sources, and other materials she buys (such as blocks of indigo). The new book The Yarn lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing by Linda La Belle, Potter’s Craft Books, has a six page spread on her, including how to dye with fresh eucalyptus, and a pattern for ruffled baby socks. Another hand-dyeing business featured in the book is Capistrano Fiber Arts. The owner, Lori Lawson, was one of my classmates in the natural dyeing class.

The class met from 9am-noon on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Though we were scheduled to meet for three hours, but Darlene asked us to get there before 9 if we could and we usually stayed up to a half hour after class cleaning up so Darlene would be ready to teach again in the afternoon. Day one, Tuesday, we each mordanted, and Day Two and Three we prepared pots of cochineal (made from the bodies of insects which are found on cacti in Mexico) , madder, logwood, dillweed, black walnut, and osage. Day four was indigo. Indigo is a great dye to use on its own, or to deal with unwanted results – just throw it in an indigo bath. Days five and six, we decided as a group what dyepots to cook up, and what to do with yarn we had brought (up to a kilo). I was glad we met in the morning, as it gave us Sunday morning to finish dyeing, with time left to hang skeins up to drip dry.

I brought home a total of twenty three – 50 gram skeins, in a range of colors and a deep appreciation for natural dyeing. As you can see in this picture of the yarn drying, natural dyes
are not just browns and yellows, but reds, blues, as well as warm yellows, oranges, and browns.

Checking in

I have just returned from the Golden Gate Fiber Institute in California on the red-eye flight that arrived at 6 am this morning. I have loads to write about that experience and pictures to upload.
I'll just say now that the Fiber Institute exceeded all of my expectations : the organizers were fabulous, the instruction was incredible, the output of participants soooo creative, the place - far more beautiful than I had even been able to imagine, the food and resident staff awesome; the whole site was a certified green business.

I came home with almost 2 dozen skeins of yarn I hand-dyed with natural dyes (cochineal, mullein, logwood, walnut hulls, indigo, dillweed, and more), and three small Estonian Lace projects knit with Nancy Bush.
And there will be another Fiber Institute Jan. 5th-11th, as well as probably next summer.

One of the teachers, Myra Wood will be leading a trip to Peru - Weaving and Freeform Fiberarts Trip June 1-10th. Will it be Sea Socks 2009 or Peru? They are the same dates.

Countryside excursion

The last time I blogged, it was the day after spending the day in rural Frederick county at ChickKnit . But I was busy writing about my trip to Italy, and put off posting about ChickKnit, til now! Dalis Davidson of Dancing Leaf Farm and Annie Kelley of Kiparoo Farm do an annual Hen Party, a workshop for knitters and crocheters. I like the Scottish meaning for hen, which is a term of endearment.
Dalis taught us needle felting, and though I had done this before, this time we made felt balls. This takes patience!
There were about 15 women and we enjoyed the country setting, and our facilities, the Bishop Claggett Retreat Center in Adamstown.
They have a beautiful new meeting building, including a dining room overlooking the nearby mountains. In addition to learning needle felting, wet felting, crochet trims, we bought yarn (of course!) and had a great lunch provided by the center's kitchen of vegetarian lasagna, salad, tortellini, and ice cream.

Lake Como, Italy

On June 17th, I left for a conference in Italy. The conference was only two and a half days, and I only had 4 days in Italy. I wasn't sure that it would be worth it to go to Europe for such a short time, but with the weak dollar, it's hard to afford more. I got a grant, and some departmental funds to pay for the trip. The catch was I am also teaching summer school, so it had to be a short trip. But who could resist the chance to visit Lake Como and the Italian lakes.
The conference was worthwhile as I made some great international contacts related to work I am doing. The picures on top on the left is the conference center, that was intentionally designed to look like a greenhouse on the grounds of Villa Erba (photo on the right). Even though it was an international conference, there were very few people there from outside of Europe, a reflection I think of the current economic conditions. However, there was a large group of Brazilians (their economy is booming), and meeting them was helpful to my current project. I am going to Chile in November, and am thinking about a stop in Brazil on the way back.
On Saturday, I took a tour that the ferry company offered : sail up Lake Como to Menaggio, get off and take a bus to Porlezza on Lake Lugano, which is partly in Italy, and partly in Switzerland. In Porlezza, take a boat down Lake Lugano into Switzerland to the city of Lugano. In Lugano, you take the funicular up to the train station, and take a train to Chiasso, Switzerland. There you get off to take a bus back to Como, but I took the train. The trip took 7 hours. I could have stayed in Lugano and shopped but had no Swiss francs, and had to be up very early the next morning to go home (and still had to pack).
On the boat, there was a group of Italian women who sang wonderfully. As they were leaving the boat in Bellagio, I realized that my new camera also takes video, and so here it is!
I worked on the socks I am knitting in Rock Creek Yarn's sock yarn, in the colorway Kilaeua.
I have my photos uploaded on Flikr though I have to figure out how to add friends so they can be seen.

Manny's 500th! at Fenway South

This post will have absolutely nothing to do with knitting :) and only a passing reference to butt watch 2008 :) :).
I was there!!!! I had no idea when I got tickets back in February that I might see Manny's 500th. Friends and their kids drove down from Arlington MA which took them all day yesterday. We drove into Baltimore at 5 PM from my place (a half hour south of Balmer), to snag parking and that worked well (we were across the street from Camden Yard for $20). My friends who'd never been to Balmer (which I just learned is called Fenway South) were totally amazed to see the streets of Balmer absolutely jammed with Sox fans - and this was 2 hours before game time. There were thousands - and for blocks around Camden Yard they filled the sidewalks. We had been worried all week about the weather forecast as thunderstorms were predicted initially for Sat. night. As we got closer to Sat. they moved the prediction for the storms to the afternoon. They were over by mid afternoon.
Anyway, Manny started out seeming to lack focus. You could feel that he seemed wound up. But after Ortiz's sacrifice fly sent Ellsbury home, the Orioles huddled, then swapped out pitchers. Manny had a couple of minutes to collect himself while the Orioles stood around strategizing. I was watching Manny through my binoculars (which I had brought to the game to engage in some butt watching). He looked very calm, and I told myself he was going to hit the first ball, and it'll be a homerun. It happened! The stadium went nuts. We were all hugging one another. After hugging everyone I knew, I turned to the women behind me- who I didn't know-, and said - this feels like church when you greet everyone around you, and shake hands - which we did enthusiastically. It was so worth it for my friends and their kids to drive all the way down from Massachusetts and back in a weekend. I was soooo happy to be there cuz I love Manny!
Here's the video at MLB.com

I've been tagged - what is this?

Okay Cici and Chelette you got me. I haven't done this before, but I'll give it a try...

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

In summer 1998, I took a 2 and half week long trip to Ireland with my son. I had long wanted to go to the remote sacred site - Skellig Michael - a remote rock with stone beehive huts which served as monks' dwellings a thousand years ago.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

It's 11 pm so I'll write about tommorrow:
Wait for delivery (which may or may not come); have a student coming to do some household repairs, phone conference 10 am-?; clean for visitors coming Sat., run errands...

3) Snacks I enjoy:
those little square wafer cookies they sell in Trader Joes and Whole Food- lemon are my favorite; ice cream, sorbet; carbs...

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Buy my brother a house; help my son out,but don't give him a lot of money; quit my job and work to improve special education in Latin America and set up a foundation; rather than buy or build a big house - buy a few small houses or apartments in places I'd like to spend time every year (an island in Ireland or Scotland, someplace in Latin America; Boston; the coast of Maine); buy a bookstore in a seaside location...

5) Places I have lived:

Germany, Kentucky, California, Japan, Georgia, Iowa, Connecticut, Boston, Maryland, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Spain.

6) Jobs I have had:

Public school teacher in Boston (17 years) then college professor in DC.

I'm going to tag:
Martha
Rebecca
Hillary
Hannah
Lola

Emergency Knitting Part 2

It didn't take long for a resourceful knitter to come up with an Emergency Knitting bag in response to the Yarn Harlot's latest thoughts on the importance of knitting.
I found this info on the bag on Lime and Violet's blog Daily Chum. The brilliant designer Illiane describes it this way:

We've been there. Caught unawares, empty handed, with time a-wasting. Whether it's at the doctor's, waiting for the mechanic to finish, or finding ourselves unexpectedly bored at a tailgating party, it would be just so much better if we had some knitting to tide us over!

Never fear, you shall never be caught unprepared again. Behold, the Emergency Knitting Bag!

She's run out right now, but expects more around June 10th. $14.95 - what a deal!