Wednesday, August 11, 2010

All Aboard for Allegan!


The Michigan Fiber Festival is just around the corner. Yippee!

Let me be plain: I love this event. I know that the weather in August can be a challenge, but this summer has already been so hot and so humid that I’m psychologically prepared for these conditions to continue. (My advice: Wear linen; it dries so quickly.) All kinds of fiber animals. Loads and loads of fiber vendors. Fiber arts, fleece, and skein competitions. The Allegan county fairgrounds are classically Midwestern and bucolic. And who isn’t charmed by the sheep dog demonstrations?

Don’t forget the workshops
! Workshops start on Wednesday, August 18 and continue through Sunday. The Festival itself opens to the public on Saturday and Sunday.

I’ll be teaching on Wednesday (“Spinning With Silk Hankies” and “I-Cord Edges and More!”), Thursday (“Slip Stitch Knitting”), and Friday (“Beginning Spinning”). I know that my Friday class is filled, and the Thursday class is nearly filled. But there is still room in the Wednesday classes. And I love both those half-day workshops. I’ve been crazy about I-cords for years; I incorporate them into a significant number of my designs.

This is the first year I’ve been offering the silk hankies workshop. The more I work with silk hankies, the more I like them! I especially like that they make great yarns whether you use high twist, low twist, or even no twist!

And silk takes color so beautifully! I’m not a dyer, so I buy silk hankies already dyed by artists who know what they’re doing. Two of my favorite sources of dyed silk hankies are Bonkers Handmade Originals
and River’s Edge Fiber Arts. I’ll be using hankies from both these sources in my workshop next Wednesday. Here’s a picture of some silk hankies and some things you can spin from them.



So, here’s hoping you can join the fun in Allegan and further hoping that the weather is kind to us.

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