There's No Place Like Home

That was a very pleasant vacation seeing some new towns like Bloomington,

and Indianapolis;

knitting--and finishing-- my Knit-1-Below leg warmers in the rental car on the way through Ohio;

being taken care of by my folks for two weeks back at the cottage on Lake Erie;  

eating the original Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar;

and hanging out in good old Wash, PA.

 I say "good old," but, dang it has really grown with all this natural gas drilling and fracking going on.  I almost fell out of the car driving around -- there are OUTLET STORES for goodness sakes.  There were people from OTHER COUNTRIES in the AT&T store. Seriously astounding.

Anyhow, we made it back only an hour late on United. The trip out on American was perfect. And the staff was friendly (and existent). I'm so glad American is flying into Eugene now.  We are definitely going to continue to try to avoid United. 

Anyhow, anyhow, we got back and the next day I went to Eugene Textile Center to get a cone of black 10/2 Pearl cotton to go with my other Lunatic Fringe yarns which I had left from my Fiber In the Forest doubleweave class with Madelyn VanDerHooght last spring. Now, that was a totally awesome class, and I learned a ton and a half, but it was seriously a bit over my head. I was so excited about weaving after that though that I was acting like a crazy chicken. I knew I needed to do something a little more basic, but what? Did I want to try to do handspun? Did I want to try some more basic dish towels? Wool or cotton? Did I want to do different threadings? So many options! Of course the result was, I didn't do anything until now.

While I was toiling back along the rails to trails bike path from Ridgeway to my folks' cottage on Silver Bay on a cranky old bike one chilly day on vacation I kept my mind off the sore parts by planning out my next project.  Doing multiplication while riding is recommended only on easy trails!  I finally decided to use the beautiful Lunatic Fringe Cotton for some multicolored dish towels where I could try different treadlings on one tie up. I used our delay "due to weather" in bright and sunny SanFrancisco, to type up my plan on my iPad.  My mental math was right, I was pleased to find. 

I grabbed my tiny warping board, which I have taken apart, and screwed it to the fence with the sides a yard apart to make it bigger.  Now this worked great the first time I did it, last spring for FITF,  

but this time the screws (which I had not too intelligently put back in the same holes in the fence) started stripping out on the right side so that edge started leaning in and the threads kept sliding off the pegs which are a little shorter than I would like anyhow since it is only a small warping board. I just kept powering through because I didn't know what else to do.  Of course the last half of the warp ended up being about 8" shorter than the first half.  If I hadn't been in a panic (did I mention I was outside and it was getting dark and I had to go to my piano class?)

 I might have realized I could just stop that warp and start a second one for the rest.  I know that's what "people" do for big warps, but "I" have never done that in my vast warping experience (I think this is warp #5).  It turns out I could even have done the colors separately.  So much to learn.  I had "heard" all of this, but it's not until you really experience something that it thoroughly sinks in.  Next time I will think in smaller warp chunks (392 ends was probably a bit much for my short pegs even if they hadn't started to come out of the wall) and be sure my warping board is really secure. Oh, yeah, and don't start later than 12:30 pm.  

It was hard to chain t off the board because of the sliding issue, but I managed it.  Whew. 

I suppose 8" of loom waste is a very small price to pay for the education.  

The saga continues in the next installment!

Fiber Financed My Fair Foray

In Washington, PA, my hometown, and seat of the county government we had an awesome County Fair.  There were so many animals and exhibits it easily took all day to see everything. I don't know if it's still awesome as it was in the 1970s an 1980s, but The Lane County Fair seems shockingly small to me given the square miles of Washington county are 861 and Lane County comes in at 4,722.

Anyhow, I decided to do my bit for the exhibits and entered 10 things in the textiles show.

We had fun treasure hunting for my 10 items.  I just had to fix the collar on this one though!

Hey, lady, read the sign!

In Wash., PA, you got a free day pass for entering--here you still have to pay your 9 bucks to get in. So I was very excited to see all the ribbons I won.

My cash prizes added up to $33, which was exactly enough to pay my and my friend Dominique's way in, buy a funnel cake, and ride the ferris wheel!

We could hear Pat Benatar playing her show from the ferris wheel.  That was pretty cool for us girls of the 80's.

Crooked Seamed Scottish Bear didn't win anything, but she did enjoy watching the world go by from the safety of her glass case.  She was, however, a little concerned with the psychiatric health of the purple crocheted snowman given the heat that week.

I received 3 First Place,  2 Second, 2 Third, an honorable mention and a Donor Award.  

There's no band night, or demolition derby, or truck pulls or anything at the Lane County Fair, but it's better than nothing, and a pretty good deal for just doing my bit!  If you are reading this from Lane County, enter some things next year to bulk up the exhibits.

Just be sure your entries are not a nice as mine!