Art and Independence

I have posted a few pictures from our booth at the Black Sheep Gathering. It was a wonderful long weekend for both myself and Vicki. We so enjoyed meeting every new person and serving our old friends. Suzie participated in the Sheep to Shawl on Friday morning and for the second year in a row came in first place. I must say though that this year only one team competed. But even then the judge gave their shawl a 100% score, and that is the best you can get. On Saturday and Sunday she taught classes while Vicki and I got to be in the booth. Thank you for all of your support of ETC.

The photo above shows a hand knitted piece from one of our customers here at he store. She draws a picture and then graphs it out by hand. No use of computers here. Then she finds the color yarns she needs and begins knitting. She calls her business Losch Designs. I must say she is quite a talented artist.

This forth of July weekend some of ETC's spinners will be at Alton Baker Park for Art in the Vineyard, demonstrating spinning. There will also be other artists there knitting, beading and weaving. Come on by and encourage us on as we bring fiber arts to the community.

Also if you are interested in purchasing a Sidekick Spinning Wheel, come on in and make a deposit. We have already sold the first four that came in and have deposits on two of the next four due to arrive mid July in the store. It is an amazing wheel and I promise to write more about it soon.

Have a very happy Independence Day.

Weekend of Wonderful

Are you ready for the Weekend?!!!!! Remember that old rock song? Well this is the weekend all of us local and not so local fiberholics love, The Black Sheep Gathering. As usual it will be held at the Lane County Fairgrounds and Eugene Textile Center has it's booth in a new location. This year we will have a larger space in order to bring you more product and make it a lot more comfortable to shop. Look for us in building 3.
In the last blog I mentioned two new books we have for you. Today I want to mention one more quite excetional book, The Big Book of Flax. This book has everything and more that you could want to know about Flax. The two authors have been raising and processing flax since 1983. I especially love the information on taking care of old linen, since I collect old tablecloths and many of them are of linen. I got a copy of the book for a friend who is learning to spin her own linen. She is finding the book quite helpful in her search for answers to spinning this fiber
Also in the booth we will have the new sidekick to try out. Our next shipment is due the middle of July so if you are wanting one of these spectacular wheels come on by, try it and have us hold one of our orders for you.
See you at the gathering!!!! ETC staff

A Good Book

One of my favorite pasttimes is reading. I am a sucker for a good book. I am not particular about whether it is fiction, romance or a good book of non-fiction. A new book that we have in the store here is called the Fleece & Fiber sourcebook. This book is quite excetional as a reference for any fiberholic, be you a hand spinner, crafter or just a hobby farmer. This book covers more thatn 200 fibers. The photographs are exquisite too. I can almost count the number of crimps in the merino photograph. I highly recommend this book for all fiber teachers and crafters.
Another wonderful book we just got in is called harvesting color by Rebecca Burgess. This book inspires me to use the natural resources of my area for dyes rather than always buy them from the store here. Rebecca gives nice instructions on how to set up a dye bath and prepare the fibers prior to dying. What I love are the photographs of the plants and the dye color that it makes.
It is my hope that you will come in and check out these wonderful new additions to our store. And if you can't make it in before Black Sheep, we will be there with the books for you to purchase there too. But remember the store will also be open during the Black Sheep show. Come by and say hi to us.

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.