Sunday, September 19, 2010

NCFF Day 3-Part 1

I'm back home, tired but absolutely thrilled with this year's NCFF. I'll write more tomorrow about the wonderful weekend, but in the meantime, here are a couple of photos and a few links...

I won this adorable little hand-made resin spindle and these lovely fibers from Dragon Craft Spindles (who will make custom spindles!).

I used the kitty spindle to spin one of the prize batts, and then I used one of my own spindles and spun another batt (this one purchased).

And then I cheated and plyed the singles on the wheel. I'm don't spin as consistently with a spindle as with a wheel, so the yarn is pretty, but it isn't as uniform as it should be. This little skein (about 1.5 ozs) is drying now. It'll probably be enough yarn for a pair of fingerless mittens.

Unfortunately, my Fair Isle Design Class was cancelled (I think maybe Sunday is the wrong day to schedule an all-day class). Fortunately, that freed  me to take a class. I signed up for a rug hooking class with Tracy Kellen, of On the Prairie Rugs (and I was going to post a link, but her etsy store seems to be empty at the moment- take my word for it, her kits are great). Anyway, I won one of her small kits last year as a prize, and bobbled it totally.

But Tracy is a great teacher (it's not her fault that my hooking is nowhere near as precise or uniform as her work-see the sample in the other pic), and I learned a lot about what I did wrong with the snowman- enough that I actually finished him when I got home tonight. Afterwards, I finished filling in the flower on today's class project. I think I'll be doing more hooking... in my spare time, of course. 
aaannndddddd

I met up with Marianne Billings, who confirmed my invitation to teach workshops at the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival, held in Lake Elmo, MN, every May! Woohoo!

1 comment:

Mary Keenan said...

Aha! *That's* what I picture when I dream of hooking a ruglike object - not yarn, but strips of felt. I'm totally checking out her Etsy shop :^)