Ahhhh Spring!

With the newborn lambs sproinging through the fields, the sun desperately trying to break through heavily laden gray skies and the house finches being just about as red as they ever get, spring is truly trying to appear. The talk all over our community has been the weather. People are disgusted with March being our 5th wettest on record and all sorts of low temperature records being broken. By the time April hits, most people living in the Willamette Valley are ready for at least a few 70 degree days so we can soak up a little Vitamin D. Shoot, it took until the last day of March before we even hit 60! Oh yes that was another record; the latest we have ever had our first 60 degree day. It doesn't seem to be bothering me as much this year as in some. When I spend the majority of my winter in Mexico and then return in April only to see 3 more months of rain, I get very discouraged. But because I spent the winter here, I see slow improvement and know that eventually we'll get some nice days. In the meantime I will just keep enjoying what keeps me busy and happy which includes my family, home, and our local fiber arts community.

I went through a sort of withdrawal during the two weeks our little school was closed for spring break. I missed all my friends and the activities that abound. I did go to the Abernethy Spring Fiber Sale, which was a great time. It was fun to see vendors I hadn't seen since last year and check out all their wares. Spring is as important to the fiber artist as it is to the gardener. Shearing brings on new supplies of fiber for all of us. My head swims with thoughts of Jacob, Romney, Border Leceister, Merino, Alpaca; the list is endless. And so many of the vendors are selling fabulously crafted rovings, yarns AND dyes that are truly to die for! I really had to show restraint. My studio only holds so much stuff and I built it that way so that I would have to finish projects before buying more supplies. It's easy for a fiber artist to just continue to fill her cabinets and baskets with more and more supplies and one begins to feel like a hoarder. I did purchase one skein of a beautiful tweedy alpaca yarn for a hat and a small drop spindle to practice spinning on while away from my wheel.

Spring term at Damascus Fiber Arts School started back up this past week. If you were thinking of coming and participating, it is never too late. You can always pay by the week instead of the entire term and that works well for a lot of the gals who know they'll be on a spring trip for a few weeks. We'd love it if you could at least stop by and see what we're all about. There are rugs on display everywhere and tons of cheery faces ready to welcome you in. 

We usually have our term potluck on the last day of the term but we delayed it until the first day of spring term because we had so much to celebrate and be thankful for. We are so very grateful that Kiki is making a full wonderful recovery from her winter medical events. This was her first time back since before Christmas. We had missed her presence terribly so were very joyful for her return.

Susan delivering Kiki to the spring potluck. Kiki you look marvelous!

I feel remarkably blessed to be a part of this community. We all fill a need in the lives of each other. Whether we need advice on a project, a ride somewhere when we're incapacitated, or just want to feel needed and help out in some way, everyone is there to do their part. I have been reminded over and over again that I mustn't be afraid to ask for help because it would be inconsiderate to not allow someone else to feel good by helping. That is the beauty of these people. No one wants to ask for help but everyone wants to be there to help anyone who needs it. If only the world could be made up of people just  like my friends.

One of our teachers, Audrey, had also been absent from school for a while. She had an accident in the line of duty (dyeing at home). It sounds like she had wonderful doctors and physical therapy and bounced back so fast that we were all amazed. It is so so so good to have you back Audrey. We love you and missed you terribly.

Audrey, obviously glad to be back at school .

When you have as many ladies with as many years of cooking experience as the ones at our school under one roof and they invite you to a potluck, you would be a fool to miss it. Curried chicken to pot-stickers, roast pork to pecan pie, stuffed mushrooms to German chocolate cake. Again something everyone!

Lining up to dish up

  

After lunch Bob showed us another rug he finished. Someone said this is his 11th rug. I think he's only been at school two years. I don't know how he does it. He is incredibly prolific and does impeccable work. We are all very impressed with his weaving abilities. Look closely, this rug has stripes that are only about a half inch wide. Stripes are very difficult to get straight and even. Amazing Bob.

detail of Bob's perfect lines.

Below is a piece that JD just finished. I remember a time when she wasn't very happy with the progress on this piece but she worked through it and came up with just a lovely weaving. Good job, JD, I love it.

if I could only remember the name of this native flower.

In February two of my fellow weavers went to a spinning retreat in Washington.  I had signed up for said retreat but ended up canceling due to the fact that the final weak of my studio being built happened to coincide with it. I'm hoping next year I can go. They focused on blending colors for spinning and as a part of those lessons they did some dyeing. Barb and Jan were anxious to experiment on their own turf so out to Drumcliffe Farm I went to see what I could see. These two gals are always a blast to hang out with. I always learn something new and have a ton of fun at the same time.

Barb said they were going to try dyeing in roaster pans so the first thing she did was go to goodwill and find us great roasting pans for a steal! We were using Lanaset acid dyes but trying something different than I had ever done before. I'm relatively new to dyeing but I've always just dyed one color in one pot, whether it was acid dyes or natural dyes. This time we were going to try to make variegated colors.

On the left is my roasting pan. My fiber is Corriedale hand-spun. I used powder dye and dropped 'red down the center, yellow on either side of the red and cyan on the edges.

In the Center is Jan's fiber. She used a Corriedale roving. For those of you who don't know what a roving is, that is the fiber that has been sheared from the sheep, washed and then carded into clean fibers that are then ready to spin into yarn or felted. Jan used a dye solution (powder mixed with water) rather than just the powder. She used syringes to apply the dye down the center with cyan, yellow on either side of the cyan and magenta on the edges. And because she was told that black would halt the colors from blending together she applied black in between the colors.

On the right is Barb's roasting pan, which is filled with mohair Boucle. For those of you who aren't familiar with boucle, it is considered a novelty yarn with a length of loops of similar size which can range from tiny circlets to large curls. To make it, at least two strands are combined, with the tension on one strand being much looser than the other as it is being plied, with the loose strand forming the loops and the other strand as the anchor.  This fiber was so beautiful as just a fluffy white and I thought she was very brave to toss it into hot water and pour dye on it. She too used a dye solution rather than powder. She applied magenta down the center, then yellow on either side and a green which was a combination of the cyan and yellow (80%/20% I believe).

This photo shows the final products. I was thrilled with mine (left). I had chosen scarlet macaw colors and the end result was perfect. Jan (center) wasn't happy with her results and is going to overdye it today. Barb was really happy with her boucle as well. Her colors so remind me of Mexico, ole! Barb has a warp on her floor loom and is planning on using this as the weft for a throw. It's going to be stunning. I can hardly wait to see the work in progress.

We still had plenty of time left to do some more dyeing so we poured ourselves some lovely wine and tried again. This time I had some Harrisville commercial yarn that I had dyed and wasn't happy with so decided to try over-dyeing. I loved Barb's colors so much that I used her dye solutions of magenta and yellow

Jan's second dyeing attempt was with hand-spun Jacob from her own sheep. She used red and yellow dye solutions and added a little black with the yellow hoping to get an olive green.

We were very pleased with our results. My yarn is on the left and is a very nice variegated yellow to hot pink. Jan's turned out yellow to pink to a really beautiful olive green. There is one small skein of fleshtone yarn hanging on the rack. That was a skein of mine that was a flop from a previous dyeing and I threw it in the left over dye bath from Jan's roving dyeing earlier in the day. We just wanted to see what would happen with the left over bath that still had some color in it. It's a great color and I'll save it for some future project.

So as we begin this month of April and I'm savoring the scent of the daphne odora,  I will remind myself that this spring isn't that different from any spring I can remember as a child. And that along with the cold and wet come daffodils and tulips and beyond that, days of picnics, gatherings in the park and trails to be explored. Until next time...................