ANWeg Fashion Show

Another event I attended at ANWeg was the Friday evening Fashion Show. I came away so inspired to weave fabric to make into clothing. I have done it once and liked my results, but they are nothing in comparision to the clothing items in this show. Our own Susie Liles had a beautiful black beaded dress in the show and a jacket woven with metallic thread that changed color depending on how the light hit it. Also Marilyn Robert had a shawl, woven from Alpaca and felted.
Most of the items were jackets. I am so impressed on how many different style jackets were made and the fabric for them coordinated so nicely with the style. I am sure they planned all this.
Two very unusual items in the show were a felted hat. The cap had a tree coming up from the top of the head with little animals among the branches. A bear below was trying to get to the animals. Along with this wonderful piece was a dress made with a peacock train from the owners own pet peacock. Both of them were the topic of much conversation at the wine and cheese reception that followed after the show.
I am so looking forward to my next weaving convention. I am aiming to enter one of my clothing pieces in the show next time. I hope some of you also enter along with me.

Weavers Guild Conference

Hello Everyone, I have finally recovered from my adventure at Association of Northwest Weaving Guilds conference. I arrived on Wednesday to help set up the vendor booth for the store. That took two days of hard work. I was fortunate to be able to attend the opening speech by Madelyn Van der hoogt, editor of Handwoven magazine. She spoke on the evolving future of fibers in the weaving world. Friday morning I took an amazing workshop on weaving with blocka with Madelyn. My Saturday classes were with Bobbie Irwin on using painted weft in weaving and another class with Teresa Ruch on painting my own fibers. During my off time i worked in ETC's vendor booth with my bosses daughter. I meet the most interesting people while working the booth. Everyone is so friendly and excited about the things that they are learning. I feel like I made some amazing new friends at this conference just by working in the booth. One of them is Tom, and I hope he sees this and calls to say hello. I told him i would put him in my blog.
One of my great aha moments was in my meeting many of the famous teachers at the conference. I am such a groupie person who is in awe of their work. If it can be imagined I feel so inadequate around them and never know what to say, so I just blabber. What I found to be true is that these talented artistic people don't put themselves up on a pedastal. They are very humble and just love sharing their creativity as much as we like learing from them.
On my next blog i will write about the fashion show. So until then, create your dreams my fellow fiber friends.

More NwRSA

I must tell you about my other purchase at the show. This was a big one for me. I got a Woolee Winder from Nathan Lee. I had heard about them for years from other spinners. Personally, I felt I could just move my sliding hook along just fine and didn't need another contraption to spend money on. But on Saturday I finally gave in and sat down and tried one on the same type of wheel that I have at home. WOW! I was so amazed at the difference it made in my spinning. I just kept on treadling and the yarn just wound onto the bobbin so nice and neatly. I learned it allows the bobbin to hold more fiber by the way the Woolee Winder wound it on. So I have added a foto of me with my newest addition to my spinning reportoire. Next time you see the booth at a show, stop by, and tell them hi, and that you heard about them here on the ETC blog.

NWRSA show

I have just returned from the NWRSA show held in Salem this past weekend. I had a wonderful time in the booth smoozing with the participants in the conference. I was fortunate to get enough time to chit chat with with Stephanie Gaustad, who was the featured Speaker for the conference. If you don't know who she is I will fill you in. Stephanie is the illustrator of Alden Amos' Big Book of Handspinning, as well as being his wife.

I also met Anita Osterhaug who is the editor on Weaving Today eNewsletter. I had to ask her how she gets so many creative ideas to write about. I was trying to find ways to make this blog a bit more interesting for all of you out there who read this blog.

I am always amazed at the beautiful artists who create so many beautiful fibers to weave with or rovings to spin. I got on 4oz skein of roving from Alexandra's fibers that is spinning like butter with beautiful fall colors that i am making for a friend of mine in Virginia. I am looking forward to working in our booth again at ANWeg in Salem, at Willamette University the end of this month. They have two days that are open to the public to come in and see all the gallerys and shop. Thoses days are Friday and Saturday, June 3rd and 4th. I hope you come by and see us whether you are a conference attendee or just a day visitor.

ANWEG buzz

I am starting to get more and more excited about the Weaving Conference for the Northwest Weaving Guilds up in Salem the end of this month. I have never attended a congerence before. There are so many great people teaching there that I want to meet. A special bonus is getting to see Jason Collingwood, who I took a rug weaving class from years ago. Here at the store, Suzie who is the Conference Chair along with Vicki as the regestrar and Marilyn is teaching. I am an attendee, so we are all a buzz with anticipation, and preparation for the event.
If you are attending the conference and read the blog, come by and see me in the ETC booth and give me feedback. I am always up to a challenge or suggestion.

Knit & Spin

I have some good new for all of you knitters and spinners in cyberland. At ETC we just received a new magazine titled Knit & Spin. My first thought was "Oh, just what we need, another spinning and knitting magazine." But I have to tell you this magazine is wonderful. The first section of this publication focuses on all the basics for a spinner. For the newer spinner it answers all those questions about differences between carded fiber and roving. There is an article on washing wool, do's and don'ts. Now I think everyone should read that article. It even offers tips on how to choose a wheel. One article by Rita Buchanan tells you how to estimate the yarn requirements for knitting projects. But this magazine does not stop there. It has patterns galore for gloves, hats, socks, sweaters and patterns for kids too. You could be happy spinning and knitting for quite some time with just the patterns from this one magazine. I already bought my copy. Yours is waiting here on the shelf.

Foto's from ETC

A student spinning her first yarn

Winding yarn onto the niddy noddy. Ta-da

Here are a few fotos from people working in the Dye Lab today.