Weekend buzz

Made good use of the long weekend starting with a sheep-to-shawl competition at the Sacramento County Fair on Saturday.

The fair had a lot of cute critters including these goats:


We were stationed next to this unlucky sheep who despite the dye job, still had faith in humanity and gamely greeted all the excited kids.
In a sheep-to-shawl contest, a team starts out with a warped loom and a sheep fleece. In this case, we were sent the fleece ahead of time so we could wash and dye it. Once the starting bell rang, we carded the fleece into rolags, spun it into yarn and wove it into a shawl. The team consisted of three spinners, a plyer (combines two single yarn plies into a double ply yarn), a weaver and a gofer. I was one of the spinners. The goal is to finish a shawl in five hours. Our team has been pushing the limits of the contest for a while, not only trying to finish a shawl, but trying to make more and more complex, fine and beautiful shawls within the time alotted.

Me madly spinning on a borrowed Lendrum, probably one of the best wheels out there...at least three people on the team have Lendrums. My wheel is a Kromski; I love it and the company that imports them is wonderful, but since I have a saxony wheel, it's not very portable.

Working on the loom with plying in the background
Frantically working on the fringe.

More finishing work. We cut it too close and didn't turn the shawl in until 3 minutes after time. We didn't have time to twist the fringes, though that could be done later. The warp was handspun suri alpaca, which has a lovely drape and nice soft feel but is much less elastic and less forgiving than wool. The pattern alternated plain weave with areas of huck lace, so it was much more complicated than previous shawls and the weaver had trouble with the warp. We finished third out of three but were proud of our effort. The other two shawls were lovely and technically perfect, but much less complex. Overall, much fun.

Monday, Aaron and I took advantage of the long weekend by going out to the Palisades in Napa Valley for a hike. The weather was beautiful, having finally cooled down, but not being too cold. We passed through such varied terrain and the poison oak was gorgeous and lush with inviting berries. So far, no one is itchy.

The flowers were blooming:
The saprolite was weathering:The sun was shining, the wind was blowing:
And the view was beautiful:

Mending our web

The theme of the Whole Earth Festival (annual music/art/education fair in Davis) this year was "Mending our web." In the past I've performed musically, sold crafts and demonstrated weaving/spinning; this year I decided to concentrate on making some art for Artspace. My piece:







It was definitely a process. The glass figures were flameworked over several weeks. Once those were done, I spun up fine silk thread from some of the silkworms I raised last year. The wooden framework was the most challenging. I cut thin strips of some scrap wood I had on the table saw, shaped the ends on the bandsaw and sanded them smooth with the drum sander. However, I wanted to avoid making a steambox to bend the wood and found that the resulting strips were still too thick to bend easily. Luckily I like handplaning and got plenty of practice thinning the strips. Taking a hot shower with them got a gentle curve in, but I had to resort to time over the teapot to bend them as much as I wanted. Then there was the task of weaving the flattened wire and suspending the glass figures on the silk without letting them bang into each other. Finished the sculpture two days later than I'd wanted to, but still in time for the festival.

Meanwhile, my current group of silkworms have been madly spinning. Here's one in progress:

and more cocoons:and more:
and more, pulled off their perches to make room for later spinners:
One determined little silkworm even made it out of the box, across several feet of carpet and up a couple feet to spin his/her cocoon here:
I guess that shows I didn't practice the bass for a couple days this past week but it was a very busy week. However, I did have my first bass lesson and learned...it's all about scales. Growing up playing classical piano (not practicing or I might be better, mostly playing) I was never very fond of scales, but in working with my college teacher, I became more appreciative of working on scales to improve technique, so I will be a good little bass student and start doing scales instead of my current regimen of playing/singing jazz ballads. Watch out neighbors, I'm learning to bow...

And last pic of Aaron's first harvest of potatoes...lovely purple and yellow fingerlings preparing for their demise: