Sweatergirl's adventures at SOAR
The SOAR party roars on up in Bellaire, Michigan, but Sweatergirl has returned to her not-quite-normal life back in a town overtaken by football hype (big MSU-UM game tomorrow).
Pre-SOAR - I realized that I only had 2 handspun sweaters to wear. And no handspun knitting project. So I cast on for Into the Mystic about a week before SOAR. Here's what it looks like now. I am really happy with the color variation!
SOAR was a pretty fabulous experience. Everyone was really interesting and excited to be there. One thing - I didn't see any bad sweaters, a la Knitting Curmudgeon's photo tour of Stitches East. But - I think generally there were not nearly as many handknit items as you might see at a knitting convention. Of course, not all spinners are knitters, but even handwoven items were scarce. But they did have a fabulous gallery (pictures another day - too big!).
The first night, Carol Rhoades and Nancy Bush presented a program/slideshow of their trip to "Scandanavian Knitting Days" - this year held in Finland, but it's held in different countries in different years. Carol had made a bunch of samples with a bunch of techniques. And my new favorite designer is Sirkka Kononen. But I don't know anything about her (?) except that the slides of her work are beautiful! Anyone have any info?
One sample I was really intriqued by was the muti-color/fairisle-type crochet. Often this is used as a top/bottom band with a knitted sweater body. Here it is in a hat. More info in January 2004 Piecework!
So I was up in the front looking at the samples when it was about time to start the program, so I scooted into the second row. And who should scoot in next to me but Nancy Bush! Whoa. I was a little starstruck - my first "real" project was from Folk Socks, and I also have Folk Knitting in Estonia and Knitting on the Road. I brought none of them for her to sign. BTW, she was wearing a lovely little shoulder shawl and her class at SOAR was on Estonian lace.
SOAR is set up with 3-day workshops that you pre-register for, and then 3 days of half-day classes, which you sign up for on-site. Some of the half-day classes are mini-classes of the workshops, but some are totally different. I was only there for the first half, but kinda wished I had gone for the whole week. There was a really open, sharing kind of environment there (and a lot of interesting topics yet to come - Nalbinding, rug hooking, freeze-dried indigo dyeing, mohair, embroidery, lace, needle felting,...). After dinner one night, Andrea Mielke from Mielke's Farm taught me how to use my Hatchtown Lady Ann spindle much more effectively. Feedback on all the classes was good - but meeting Judith MacKenzie was a true highlight. She is an amazing person - and she let me spin on an ancient Peruvian spindle! Whoa. Someone later advised me, "If Judith teaches a class on boiling water, take it." Implying that she's such an amazing teacher, you would learn something fascinating no matter what the topic.
Other classes I would have liked to take - Robin Russo's combing class, Carol Rhoades's spinning for a purpose class, and Judith Mackenzie's/Nancy Bush's Spinning for and Knitting Estonian Lace (but that group had some late night homework...). Nancy Shroyer was teaching a color in Fair Isle knitting class, and all the samples coming out of that class were beautiful!
I was in a workshop called "Spinning 201", in which we sampled, sampled, sampled. We spun one wool in many different ways (combed, carded, long draw, short draw worsted style, short draw woolen style , and medium draw/attenuating against the advancing twist). So for two days we worked with Coopworth and similar medium wool. We Andean plied and Navajo plied and cable plied. On the third day, we tried all the same techniques with carded and combed fine wool (Polworth and Merino) and carded and combed long wool (Icelandic). I learned that I underply consistently. Good to know...
There were a lot of people from Michigan at SOAR - In class, I sat between a spinner from Belleville and a spinner/shepherd from Plainwell who raises Cotswolds. Cotswolds are a rare breed with relatively coarse wool, but it can be quite lovely! Carla was also in the same class. And ten others - we all clicked and had a good time in class! I also got to meet Sue from Wild Child Fibers - what a fun person. She has a great sense of color, and was taking a class on using hand-dyed roving.
Wheels - there were wheels of all kinds there. But lots of Lendrums (the wheel I spin on mostly). This might be a biased sample, since they fold and are fairly easy to transport. But there were at least a few of everything - Ashfords, Kromskis, Schachts, Reeves, Baynes, Jensens, and some that I didn't recognize. But I got to see some Timbertops being set up in the market, a wheel make I had never seen before. Lennox wheels were also to be there, but weren't set up before I left. Oh well!
I also had the chance to tour Stonehedge Fiber Mill in East Jordan, about 20 miles from the SOAR location. What a cool place - You can tell they care about and understand the fiber in each step of the process, and the family really works together well. Everything I have had processed by them has come out wonderfully, so it was a treat to see all the labor and equipment involved.
The market didn't open until Thursday, so I was already gone. They gave us a big goodie-bag (trick-or-treat!) filled with fiber smaples and catalogs and info. I did get to purchase some items informally...some Cotswold, some silk, some fun roving...I also did some pre-SOAR book acquisition - book reviews another day!
