Twisp of Fate

The Okanogan County Fair was postponed this year because of the fires over in the Okanogan Valley to the east of our Methow Valley.  It is usually the weekend after Labor Day but there was a big fire camp set up there, and so the fair committee decided to postpone by 2 weeks rather than cancel.  It was last weekend (Sept 24-27).

This was a problem for kids back in school, and especially those raising livestock, as they aim to have optimal weight and condition by the usual projected date.  But it’s still better than cancellation!

Our guild (Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild) put together our usual display, which features items woven for our current year’s challenge project.  This year the challenge theme was “Twill” and we had a wide variety of items, which made it kind of hard to display – but the women who put it together did a great job.  We got a “Special Award” for the display.  I am sorry I do not have a picture – I didn’t make it over to the Fair and seem to have deleted the picture that was sent to me by email.

I submitted 4 items for the spinning and weaving departments.  I got blue ribbons on all and some other ribbons on 3 of them.  The purple ones are Grand Champion and the yellow and green one is what they call a Special Award.

“Handknit from handspun cowl” and one of the crackle weave towels I just finished:

Extended manifold twill shawl in fine cotton and tencel:

I wrote a blog post back in April which shows and explains the shawl and the cowl.  You can find it here.

Down at the weaving guild room, I put on a third and final warp for the crackle weave towels and have been weaving away.  Took it off the loom today.

This may be my favorite of the 3 colorways.  I will post pictures once they are finished!

I had to clear off my loom there because we have a workshop coming up in about a week and half and I will need my loom for one of the projects.  This has been my other major activity – I am the chief organizer and it has been a lot of work.  We are having Mary Berent from Eagle, Idaho (just outside Boise) come to do her “Combining Common Cottons” workshop and also give a slide talk for our guild and the general public down at TwispWorks.  It is a round-robin style workshop and we have 10 people signed up.  Each person has to set up one of the projects, so I had to make sure we had the right number of looms with the right attributes in the room – some of them are there now, some have to be brought in.  Also needed to make sure we have the right materials, and order what we didn’t have, etc.  This has been going on for a month and I am so ready to have it finally happen and be over with!