Twisp of Fate

Last weekend was the Methow Valley Spinners & Weavers Guild annual show & sale.  As usual, our guild meeting room was transformed into a beautiful display of our work.  We often fret that “we won’t have enough stuff” – ha!

We did a good job on the advertising this year – newspaper ads, newspaper article coverage, radio ads, and many flyers put up around Twisp and Winthrop.  There was a good turnout and it was quite successful!

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Well, it’s been a race to the finish but I did get everything done for my weaving guild’s annual sale this weekend.  So here it is… I will post some pictures of the event in a couple of days.  We also have friends from Ashland, OR coming to visit for 2 nights so it should be a busy and fun weekend.

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This past weekend our weaving guild brought in Mary Berent from Eagle, ID (near Boise) to teach a 2-day workshop on “Combining Common Cottons”.  It was set up as a round-robin format, where each loom had a different setup and then we took turns weaving a sample on each one.  We had 10 people and 11 looms setup, so it was busy and kind of intense, but we got through it all.

The idea is to combine commonly available and relatively inexpensive plain cotton weaving yarns with other types of yarn (novelty knitting yarns, more textured or heavy cotton yarns, linen, and other fibers – including mohair!) for a variety of reasons.  These could include:  making a more interesting fabric, making a fabric better suited to its purpose, saving money when using expensive yarns, not having enough of something you really want to use, etc.

Mary brought lots of examples:

At the end of the second day, we took the entire length woven off each loom and discussed what we were seeing, before cutting them apart so everyone could take their sample home to be wet-finished and stored in our notebooks.

We also asked Mary to give a 2-hour lecture Sunday evening that was open to all, not just our guild.  The topic was “Inspiration, Color & Design” and we had about 22 people in attendance down at TwispWorks.  This was the community outreach part of the grant we got from ANWG last year (Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds).  Again, she brought lots of samples for people to pore over.  I think everyone, including the non-weavers, found it interesting.

I took her to the airport in Wenatchee this morning and am now home – tired, inspired, and ready for a vacation.  We head off for Seattle and Vancouver BC for the rest of the week, so that should fit the bill!

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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!

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Last week I finished the next 3 towels after fixing the warp on my loom at the weaving guild room.  There are 3 different treadlings given with the pattern instructions so this represents all of them.

Here is a closer look at the one that was offset by one thread (on the left) compared to the correct version (on the right).I have been down at the guild room a lot this past week, weaving more of these and using different color combinations for the wefts – so all of them will be a little different.  Should be able to finish up today and then, of course, there is the hemming and washing and pressing to do – but I should have more pictures coming up.

Last night there was a really fun event down at TwispWorks.  Bluebird Grain Farms had its 10th anniversary celebration and organized a Farm to Table Paella Feast featuring paella made with their emmer farro as the main dish.  There were about 300 people in attendance!

The paella dinner was designed by Cameron Green (she is a local chef and caterer).  John Sundstrom of Lark restaurant in Seattle, one of Bluebird Grain Farms’ earliest customers,  came over for the event and prepared his signature seafood paella dish.  There were three huge paella pans going over wood fired outdoor cookers, plus several salads, bread, desserts, and a no-host bar featuring local beer and wine.  Almost all of the food was sourced from local farmers, bakeries, coffee roasters, etc.  and some of the proceeds went to support the Methow Made program (in 2013, TwispWorks started Methow Made as a collaborative marketing program to help Methow Valley food and beverage producers reach new customers).

Here are some pictures from last night’s event:

seafood prep

John Sundstrom from Lark restaurant

one of the wood-fired paella pans

Cameron Green, chef & caterer extraordinaire

a beautiful evening among friends at TwispWorks campus

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