A View from Sierra County

Learn To Knit Lace!

I will be teaching a beginning lace knitting class next month, with the first session on June 11th at Fibers Grass Valley, the LYS where I work on Saturdays, so spent a good portion of May 'whipping up' an example of the pattern we will be using.  It is Sivia Harding's Gothic Leaf Lace Stole pattern, as adapted by the designer into a scarf pattern for teaching.

I am delighted to be able to share the results with all of you....

Here is a long view of my version, done in a subtle reddish colorway of Mega Boots and laid out with blocking wires to dry earlier this week.  I hurried to block the scarf on Monday (my Sunday) so that I could drop it by the shop on Tuesday afternoon to display and promote my class.  I already have three students enrolled, and helped one pick out her yarn last Saturday, so excitement is building.  If you are in our region and want to take the class, I will be teaching this pattern as a springboard to choosing the proper yarn for lace, reading charts and learning to read your knitting, methods to help you keep track of your pattern, blocking, and even adding beads.  There will be three Wednesday evening meetings, with two weeks in between each, to give the learners ample time to make steady progress on their lace projects and come back with questions.

This photo is a close-up of the leaf structure....

I enjoyed this pattern, and it should be a good introduction to lace for advanced beginner and intermediate knitters.  I also want to note that I am very pleased with how well this superwash wool blocked, and really can't imagine living without my blocking wires (just in case you were wondering on either point).

I have spent May entirely on lace knitting, finishing up both my Spring Things shawl and my Gothic Leaf Lace scarf... you might think I would be done with lace for a while, and I am considering two non-lace projects I discovered in Compassionate Knitting, but while I search around for the proper yarns for those projects, I have returned to working on Flutter.

I spent today in a work-related training and Friday will be part two, both of the training and of furthering along this pretty little lacy confection of Miriam Felton's.  I have another of her designs, Zephyros, waiting in the wings (as one of Wooly Wonka Fibers' Lace Club kits), and also started the Ogee Lace Skirt from Interweave Knits Summer 2007 as a yoga wrap/skirt/shawl for class, which I get to finally resume next week.... I would not normally wear a lacy skirt, but this one worn over yoga pants or capris, and then used as a shawl/blankie during meditation or relaxation sounds like just the item I have been wanting to make!

In other news, I am beginning to make a list of things to look for at Estes Park (more lace yarn, a few special books, a pattern for a friend), and otherwise plan for our brief vacation (it really is all about the people, as Carole said earlier this week).  My friend Sallee is having her first-ever sale over at Nana Sadie Rose, where she offers some of the most creative solutions ever to your organization needs - go check it out. And, last but not least, my LYS co-worker and sock teacher extraordinaire, Luci, has finally broken down and started a blog... please go by and welcome her to Knit-Blog-Land.

 

The weekend fast approaches, and we will be celebrating my dear friend Suzi's "Rewirement Party", her term for getting re-wired to go forward into her new life post-speech therapist.  The theme is Eygptian, and we will be dancing to her favorite band on Saturday night.  I hope you have as much fun!

A Tale of Two Wheels

I mentioned awhile back that I was test-driving another spinning wheel.... let me introduce you to my new-to-me Ashford Traveller:

The Ashford is in the foreground, at Stephanie's, with her Kromski Sonata in the background... she originally brought it to her house for her neighbor Rhodie to try out, but then Rhodie made a pilgrimage trip to CNCH the first weekend of this month and purchased a brand-new Lendrum!

I fell in love with the neat and pretty, old-fashioned appearance of the Traveller and her lovely, light color, but didn't want to be biased and made myself sit down and spin with her at our last Knit Night (we are lucky right now to meet twice a month, and the next one is tonight at my house).  She spun very much like my Ashford Traditional, which instantly convinced me I could happily 'trade', since this newer wheel was tighter and much more portable.  I have been dragging my Traditional in and out of the back jump seats of my Nissan pickup for the past year or more, which is neither easy nor good for the wheel.

So, I took the Traveller home that night and proceeded to spend the next several days tuning both it and the Traditional carefully, reading sections of Teach Yourself Visually: Handspinning, by Judith McKenzie-McCuin, and greatly improved my understanding of making tension adjustments, ratios, and even of how the thickness of your drive band can change the thickness of your yarn.  I highly recommend this book, and will be a better spinner as I apply more and more that I gain from reading it.  Back to the Traveller... I spun some more on it, and became convinced that it would meet my needs (and fit in my living room, where I sit and spin at home) far better, so I sent off a check to its former owner, and listed my Traditional for sale on my guild's Yahoo list.

Surprisingly, I got four email inquiries back over the next days, and a call from Jocelyn, who asked to meet me at work last Saturday to try out the Traditional.  This meant I had to very quickly clear off two bobbins of the never-ending grey Coopworth I have been spinning.. late on Friday evening, gulp!  I Navajo plied them as fast as my little fingers could, and a new skein is now hanging to dry over my bathtub, and looking much better for the many good whacks I gave it.  While my chain plying technique still needs lots of practice, I probably have enough of this grey yarn to overdye and make myself something!

Jocelyn has been spinning far longer than I, weaves, teaches music at a school in Yuba City, raises cavys, has a small hand-dyed fiber business, and in her spare time works as a docent at Sutters Fort State Historical Park.  She wanted the Traditional because she had already tried unsuccessfully to repair the antique wheels on display there into functionality, and wanted an old-looking wheel that works well so she could demonstrate spinning during some of her time in costume at the Fort.  I helped her load the wheel in the back of her Jeep Cherokee, where it could comfortably lie down and nap during trips to the Fort.  Now, two spinners are very happy!

Living On The Rim

Even though I have some great knitting news to report, it will have to wait until later in the week, since I can't wait to share photos from the Pacific Rim Street Fest, an event I attended on Sunday in Sacramento.

I went down to see my 'bestest/longest" (I just don't like the sound of "oldest") friend, Laura, perform with the Koyasan Taiko Group and am so very glad I did, even though the temps in Sacramento this past weekend hovered right around 100 degrees... big shock from a week ago here in the mountains!

Now, Laura doesn't have a blog. She doesn't knit. In fact she is a potter, a drummer, and a midwife.  But, I met her when she was eight months pregnant with her first child, who was born exactly a year before my first child, and she attended the home births of all three of my children, delivering the last as her first birth after completing her midwifery apprenticeship.  We have been through so much together, including divorces, weddings, graduations, and even a grandchild (hers, not mine)... our friendship is going on thirty years!  She is one of the few of my friends from my Sacramento days that I have stayed in contact with over the years (I grew up there, and spent about 10 years of my adult life there as well, though I lived in Southern Oregon for three years and the Sierras for a total of 24).

Laura has been practicing Taiko drumming for about eight or nine years now, and I have only been able to make it to a few performances, so I was very excited.  She was even more excited that I would be able to see the internationally-renowned Sacramento Taiko Dan, much more famous and professional than their small group which is sponsored by one of the local Buddhist temples.

We watched the Sacramento group perform two sets, with a brief intermission of welcoming remarks by Sacramento's mayor, Heather Fargo, who pointed out that Sacramento is the most culturally diverse city in the United States... though widely diverse in the years I lived there, it has expanded even more in the past two decades and embraced its multicultural identity with a sense of fun and celebration.  It is possible to attend many such cultural events year round, celebrating the cultural heritage of Latinos, Filipinos, Portuguese, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Indian, Russian, middle eastern, Jewish, and other north, south, and west African populations, as well as hear Mass in at least five languages, and pick up newspapers in a dozen or more.  We had dined at Queen Sheba, an Ethiopian restaurant that is a favorite of laura's grandson, Caelen and his mothers Saturday evening, while his mom, aunt and uncle all worked at other ethnic restaurants in the busy midtown portion of the city.

After the Sacramento group finished their thunderous performance, we slowly made our way through the sweltering crowds, peeking at booths and heading towards another stage, where Laura's group was to meet and perform.  The temps were in the high 90s, so we sought shade and comfort in the long line waiting to get freezes... we chose mango/lemon.  I was afraid the camera might melt, so didn't risk a photo.

I browsed around in the shade a bit since the performers had to assemble early, and discovered a booth selling books and music in several of the languages of the Pacific Rim, all being greedily snatched up by locals.  Then, I met up with one of Laura's DDs, Gabrielle, who had her nephew Caelen along with her friend Christina and her two children.  We all enjoyed the brief performance of a group of girls doing a Korean parasol dance.

The kids discuss things while they wait for Grandma's Taiko group to start its performance...

Taiko is hard to explain to those who haven't witnessed it... here is a quote I copied from the Sacramento Taiko Dan website to give you an emotional feel for the experience:

"Imagine being surrounded by a thunderous rhythm as you watch drummers united in choreographed movement. Imagine being drawn by the energy and spiritually moved by the sheer physical and emotional exertion of the artists as their passionate performance unfolds. Imagine how such a collective effort could reach and influence an audience of any age and cultural background."

The word "taiko" translates as "big drum" and is used to refer to a method of Japanese drumming that is both an honored traditional expression of the Japanese culture, and has also seen a resurgence in popular appeal that goes beyond its origins.  I am not sure if Taiko has made it beyond the eastern range of the Pacific Rim, but I do know that it is not hard to find in California.

Here, Laura's teacher does a solo part in the first adult drum song.

Drumming is a conversation, as seen in this interchange between teacher and student.

You can tell that my dear friend loves to drum...

Laura is in the center, with a big smile on her face.

The high temperatures left her and her troupe drenched in sweat, dehydrated and a bit dazed at the end of a rousing set, so we sat in the shade awhile as she poured water over her head, and then decided we had seen enough for one hot spring day!

I left the street fair proud to say I was born in Sacramento!

I have spent Monday (the Sunday of my workweek) recuperating from spending so much time in the heat, doing some spring cleaning, and even getting my Spring Things shawl off the needles this evening while I wait for my slow dial-up connection to load photos.  There will be pictures of her soon, but I can tell already, wrapping her Cormo/Angora softness around my shoulders, that she will be a favorite.

G is for Going Gray

Image is a powerful thing here in the United States, and my issues of 'self-image' have been manipulated by the media for as long as I can remember.  Back when I was in late elementary school, I didn't want to admit that my eyesight wasn't as good as it should be, because wearing glasses was 'geeky' and uncool.... I spent 5th and 6th grade sitting in the front of the class so that I could see the board rather than acknowledging there was a problem and finally broke down and told my Mom I needed eyeglasses when I started 7th grade, but only because one of the coolest girls needed them in class.

In high school I began to worry about my weight, and though I never became anorexic, I have dealt with concerns about not being skinny enough ever since.  Much of the time, it was more in my mind that in reality, though middle age has led me to appreciate the body I used to have a lot more.

Middle age has also led me to confront another image issue... why Americans don't want to look old.  Everywhere you turn, there are ads promoting anti-aging foods, cosmetics and other products.  Diet and exercise along with modern medicine, have created the potential to live far longer than our grandparents did.  However, it is the young look that is revered in our culture.  Love of youthfulness is now competing with a longer lifespan, to the further detriment of having a healthy self-image. 

While I was pondering how to keep a healthy body the past few years, and noticing that I had to exercise more simply to lose less ground, while not really getting 'better' (meaning trimmer, firmer, stronger, etc.), I didn't notice that those highlights my hairstylist had started putting in my hair when I thought it would be fun to change my look in my late 30s, were now being used to cover a steadily increasing amount of gray.
I have been very faithful about keeping my hair well styled for the past two decades, and my hair was never, ever growing out, so it wasn't until I read Going Gray last fall that I watched more closely the next time I had my hair painted.... oblivion can be such a comfortable place to hang out in!

This photo was taken in the summer of 2004, at the height of my 'blondie' period, and even my stylist and I could agree that it was 'over the top'... to artificially blond for me to be comfortable wearing.

I realized that I had been eating up all those compliments I had received for the past five years about how young I looked to have grown children, etc.  What I knew that others didn't was that was just genetics, which is pretty much the same as saying I was just lucky.  Over the course of 2007, as I was turning from 52 to 53 in years, I was also watching a streak of white grow in over my left temple, which my stylist was highlighting a blondy-white to blend with the rest of my fakey-colored hair.  Here's a nice, but grainy photo of me from last September...

a more natural look, and those good genes sure don't hurt in promoting the myth that I might be much younger than that number on my driver's license, but, hey, I'm all about authentic living and integrity in the other areas of my life, and I suddenly didn't want to be lying, covering up gray hair, trying to appear younger.  I am proud of much of the experiences of my 53 years, and humbled by the rest of them.  I also don't work in any of those youth-driven industries, and didn't need to think about going out and finding a job, so I decided back in November to give up coloring my hair and 'go gray'.

I was worried about having roots that looked awful.  I was anxious about my stylist and if she would 'fire' me as a customer and be unwilling to go through this journey with me... she might not want people to know I was a customer if I went around looking bad.  So, partway through the past several months, I decided to have her cut my hair shoulder length, so that it would look even more well-groomed each and every day.

By the time I modeled my turquoise Ballet T shirt in late March, my hair was tidy, but growing more gray.  It was interesting to learn that the top of my head has the most in the way of light gray hair, while the undersides and back were more darkish.  My haircolor in childhood varied from the bleached dishwater blonde of summer to the chestnut reddish-brown mix of hippie longhair in college.

The line between colored hair and new growth was becoming more pronounced.  My hairstylist had suggested a few months back that if I allowed my hair to dry naturally rather than blow-drying it straight, the line would be less pronounced due to the unevenness curliness produces, so I tried that and was reminded once again how lucky I am to have the possibility of wild, curly hair.  So, about a month ago I took the radical step of cutting my hair shorter still, to reach the length of maximum curliness....

This photo taken on Mother's Day, with oldest son Cody, in the light blue cap, and youngest, Jesse, on my other side shows me as I am today, with shorter, curlier hair, a middle-aged woman with grown children.  I miss having long hair a bit, and once I have shed much of my color-damaged hair, will probably let it grown longer once again.

I am lucky not to need to go out into the bigger world and try to convince someone I am 20 years away from retirement and will work myself into the ground for them.  I am luckier to have the love of family and friends helping me to live my authentic self.

Happy Mother's Day to All

I hope all of my dear readers are celebrating a wonderful Mother's Day with family and friends!  I am off soon to have brunch with my three adult children, though DH is off to his first day of the season as High Country Ranger for our local forest service district.... we are both disappointed that it had to fall on this day, but you can't miss your start-up date or call in sick, so off he went.

In honor of our Mother, the Earth, Fibers (the LYS where I work on Saturdays) has offered our friends and customers a special Mother's Day gift. Here is the link to the patterns that owner Allison wrote up for Mother Earth Market Bags.... I am making mine from this colorful yarn from Mango Moon:

The yarn is Bali Sky, made from viscose recycled saris, and has a stiff hand, just the thing needed for stretchy mesh bags.  Allison's pattern is written to make the bags flat and seam the sides, so that there is additional structural stability for a very stretchy product.  Right now, we have the largest one, made with a stockinette back and a mesh front, on display in the store window holding 'go to the river' supplies, such as mat, towel and sunscreen.

An all mesh model is displayed holding groceries, and a third, larger mesh one holding your knitting goodies....

They are very cute, and would make good gifts!

My Mother's Day gift to myself was yet another fine Nana Sadie Rose knitting item... the new Glady case for interchangeable needles that Sallee has dreamed up.

The fabric is the same one Sallee made up her darling little backpack, the Grace, for me awhile back, and the inside shows my Harmony needle tips peeking out... and there is plenty of room left to tuck in other essentials, such as a cable needle or crochet hook!

I am delighted with this new piece of organization in my life... not my strongest feature.

I am off to enjoy the springtime and hope you have been too!

Saturday Sky

Today's photo was taken of the sky in early evening at Stephanie's on Thursday as I arrived for Knit Night... the evening is lasting so much longer and the light so soft, that I can finally, truly believe summer is almost here.  Her view stretches out east into the Sierras and is framed with towering oaks... very peaceful and inspiring.

I hope you are happily busy with a weekend full of spring activities, including outings, gardening, and of course, celebrating Mother's Day!

Catching Up

Here's my poor, neglected little blog, wondering where I have been for the past two weeks... I have definitely become a backwater in KnitBlogLand, maybe even a stagnant pool.  Since my last post, I ended up sick, yet again, with my recurring respiratory/sinus problems, the day after marching on the Capitol.  I attributed it to the breezes and the spring pollen, but also couldn't stop coughing incessantly, and ended up cleansing, taking all kinds of remedies, and agreeing to a course of antibiotics for what appeared to be a low-grade sinus infection that kept re-infecting me.  I have been slowly, but steadily improving, and those in my daily sphere who also got this last bout of crud have also had hard-to-shake coughs and the feeling of being in a time warp.  All of a sudden, its early May, which means warm to hot weather, and the beginning of the dry season (which actually started back in March here in California; looks to go down on record as a near-drought year even after all that snow in January).  I have missed the lively interaction with my virtual community this long, sickly winter, and hope that my health improving will help my interactions with others to blossom along with the summer season.

While I was sick, I discovered that somehow there were beads in my knitting.  I managed to dazedly and doggedly pursue knitting beads in using the skinny crochet hook method and make it all the way through Chart B of the Spring Things shawl!  I am working along through Chart C now, and hoping to get this wonderful, scrummy shawl done by the end of May and have it as my evening wrap through summer.... the yarn is Wooly Wonka's angora/cormo in Salt Marsh colorway and I love everything about it, especially the fact that the project is out of hibernation and well on its way to becoming a FO.

Then, I also managed to muster up energy the last weekend in April to make the mandatory appearance at my art class final, the Day of the Young Child Festival, where we helped children do easel painting on a warm, spring afternoon.  I have a general policy not to publish photos of children who aren't related to me on the Internet, so I have nothing to show you, but take my word for it... the kids had a blast, from the youngest one year old to the teens painting a la Jackson Pollack.

I also found a tiny bit of energy as I began to improve to spend some time making a huge mess in my studio.  I did a lot of sewing in April, and had both sewn and knitted items to display at last Saturday's annual community-wide Plant Sale and Flea Market.  I shared a booth with Wooly Daisy, and she reminded me we were merely 'advertising' our creativity to our community, as this was the place that people bought their plants for the season, and only thought about other purchases.  However, other people made a lot of money off of DH, who managed to find some great flea market finds!

I did get inspired to begin setting up my own Etsy shop, where you will find some knitted folk toys, mohair shawls, organic cotton washcloths, and several upcycled fashions.  My store name is More Grace, reflecting the passion I feel that keeping things out of the waste stream adds beauty to our world.  Repurposing means less waste with more grace!

My main knitting project so far in May has been to work on finishing up my example for the beginning lace knitting class I will be teaching at Fibers Grass Valley on June 11th, June 25th and July 9th.

I decided to make the classes two weeks apart instead of the more usual one week, since lace can seem very slow-going to newbies, and I want to cover most of the project from beginning to end, including an afterword on blocking and adding beads to your knitting on the third session.

Sivia Harding's Gothic Leaf Lace scarf has been growing steadily, and I love the subtle colors... it is also a project that is easy to learn, as well as rewarding when blocked - enough I hope to inspire a new set of lace knitters here in my area!!

There are a couple of newsworthy tidbits in the works here around Slate Range Camp, including an upcoming family reunion, DHs' brother's wedding reception this summer, and a vacation for the two of us in June... but if I told you everything at once, there would be no reason to hurry back!  I will casually toss out there that I am trying to bring a new (used) spinning wheel, my second, into my home... keep your fingers crossed for me!