March 26, 2010

Establishing a Craft Zone

Early in the morning, poking along getting ready to drive south with Denny and Rachel H for a Sara Lamb weaving class that we've been looking forward to for a while.  (We're going to learn how to do cut pile weaving like on the cover of her book.) A road trip with the ladies is always fun, and we've spent the last few days gathering up tools that we don't know anything about and putting them in bags to take with us.  (I shouldn't say that.  Rachel H and I are gathering up things we don't know anything about, Denny  is a competent and experienced weaver. She's been helping us figure out what to get.)

We needed 12 dent reeds for our rigid heddle looms, C-clamps and nippers, #10 crochet cotton (Rachel got that.  Thank you Mary Maxim) and we needed small amounts of tapestry yarns, though Sara did say we could spin our own.  Yesterday I gathered my forces (such as they are. My forces have been all over the place lately) and I looked around for some fibre to spin, but what to do if you need small amounts of several colours?  The answer was here.

Tina bought this fleece from Francine at Rovings.  It's beautiful.  I pulled one handful from each of several different areas...

I carded them,

I spun them...


and now Denny, Rachel H and I have some pretty little yarns to learn to do cut pile weaving with. Denny and Rachel H have been spinning too, so I can't wait to see what grab bag of stuff we'll have to work with.  In the meantime,   a roadtrip to get there. Rachel and I take turns driving and navigating, and Denny establishes a "Craft Zone" (It's her invention, she gets to name it) with several craft stations in the backseat.  Spinning station, knitting station, weaving station - she gets them all set up and rotates through them as we drive.

The most remarkable and stunning thing about "the craft zone" isn't how it looks (and it looks pretty remarkable and stunning) it is that we have never, ever been asked about this at the border.  Denny smiles up at the agent from a sea of wool and it's related tools, beams at him or her and they look sort of stunned, check our passports and let us in to the US without a word about the drum carder in the back window.   Denny thinks it's because they're impressed. I think they're dazzled.
Craft Zone.  It's how we roll.

Posted by Stephanie at March 26, 2010 8:11 AM