April 12, 2007

It had to get weird.

If there was any doubt, even for a minute that a chicken themed sock camp on Orcas Island would get weird at some point, it's been exploded by the last couple of days. Monday morning I left my house and made an uneventful flight to Vancouver, then Seattle, where Cat met me and we started to head back to her house. Cat Bordhi and I are both Staff at this camp (hosted by the clearly lunatic Blue Moon Crew) and all campers (staff included) had been mailed some "chicken scraps" (oddments of yarn- you could use them or not.) and the instruction to arrive with a chicken made of fibre.
A chicken? Cat and I had both decided to blow this off.
We were not going to knit a chicken. We argued that there was nothing they could do to us if we came with no chicken. We're teaching two of the classes. We were untouchable....chicken punishment wise. We pondered this while Cat took me to the Skacel Warehouse for a look around. This place is wild. Totally wild.
This is the "needle room". (I got an Addi lace needle I'll be checking out over the next little bit)

Needlesatskacel0404

There is a warehouse full of sock yarn. Full. Colourways and kinds I've never seen. Ever. Check this...

Bambootrekk1204

Bamboo trekking. (I haven't tried it yet...but is it possible for it to suck? I don't think so.) This distracted us nicely from the chicken issue. As we drove onward to Cat's house, we started to talk about what other people might do about the chicken knitting. We talked a little about what we might do if we were to make a chicken. We talked about perhaps doing a chicken together. Then we stopped at a grocery store to get dinner, and the whole thing came together. Cat Bordhi and I would do a joint chicken. A chicken of wonder. A chicken of glory. A chicken for Blue Moon Tina...who totally deserves one. We came up with the idea of a fabulous knitted chicken, sitting atop a big felted egg...and inside the egg would be tons of wee chickens. It was a terrific idea...and Cat and I didn't let the realities of how much time was left to us stop us at all. We began to hunt the grocery store for something that would work. We considered a watermelon (too big) an eggplant (oddly, not egg shaped enough) other melons (too fragile for the felting process) a pineapple (we would have to duct tape down the pointy bits) and then finally....in a master stroke of genius...

Catcabbage1204

A Nappa Cabbage. It would be perfect. I knit chicken babies while Cat drove, we talked chicken technique...we discussed colourways and dug around in our bags of chicken scraps...in essence, we were no longer chicken resisters. We were the leading edge of the chicken obsessed. I started to knit chicken babies while cat drove. We both knit chicken babies on the ferry.

Sockonaferry

Back at the house we duct-taped up the cabbage (we needed to tape it so it wouldn't come apart in the felting.

Ducttape1204

Wrapped it in targee roving, then panty hose, then popped it into the washing machine with a bunch of tennis balls....and began knitting chicken parts while we crossed our fingers. As the house filled with the smell of wet wool and cooking cabbage... It occured to us that we hadn't quite figured out how we would get the cabbage OUT of our felted egg. Turned out to be a bit of a production.

Cabbageegg1204

(There was way, way more to getting it out, but I'm due on a boat in 10 minutes and need to hustle.)

We continued knitting chicken parts...

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and we finished. A knitted chicken, atop a felted egg filled with chicken babies. I think Tina liked it.

Tinaschicken1204

There was competition though... I leave you now with this.
A parade of knitted chickens.

Chicken1205

Chicken51204

Fishchicken3001204

Chickens41204

Chicken31204

Chicken21204

Cookiechick1204

(I told you. It had to get weird.)

Posted by Stephanie at April 12, 2007 10:56 AM