I took a little road trip down to Albany, Oregon on Saturday to visit Black Sheep Gathering. This year is the 50th year of this fiber festival, but it was my first time ever. I wanted to take a class with Galina Khmeleva, master lace knitter. We’ve been at many of the same festivals, but I’m usually teaching instead of taking classes. This was my chance!
Orenburg lace is knit with 10 different motifs, combined in many ways. It’s usually on a garter stitch background. Some motifs have patterning only on the right side rows, and some have patterning on both right and wrong side rows. All the stitches are either knit, yo, k2tog, or k3tog. There’s no directionality to the decreases; the work is so fine that it really doesn’t show.
We didn’t have time to knit through all the motifs, but the magic is really in the combining. We knit our swatch samplers with Jaggerspun Zephyr, a laceweight blend of wool and silk, 1120 yards/100g. Skinny, but not hard to knit with. I knit my swatch on US 2 needles, and I loved the stitch definition.
Galina gave us enough handouts to keep us busy for years to come. And she regaled us with many stories of the history of Orenburg lace, and more.
Gossamer web, indeed!
The Warm Shawl is a heavier version of Orenburg lace. Simpler patterning, but it’s not really that heavy, either. It’s knit in pieces and grafted together with a special grafting method, which was the subject of the next day’s class. Alas, I was not staying over.
I did visit with the sheep in the barn, and also viewed the fiber work exhibits.
Look at this beautiful wool! This is Sorpresa, a Valais Blacknose sheep from Honey Hoof Ranch.
Even horns are beautiful.
There was a sheep to shawl exhibit from 9 am to 2 pm.
And the fiber work exhibits were beautiful.
This shawl by Lucy Swift was my favorite piece in the exhibits.
All right, back to knitting! I’m knitting another sample of the leafy brioche cowl now that I have it figured out. I need to decide if I want to publish an assigned pooling/algorithmic knitting version in addition to the regular one. More on that later…
PDXKnitterati 
Love the lace shawl and the beautiful sheep. Palma G
That have is gorgeous! What a fun class!
will you be needing any rest Knitters for the newest brioche cowl?
Deb Samuels
pS happy Fourth!
that was supposed to say ” that leave is gorgeous”
So much for proofing!
D.
Hi Michele! Wasn’t Galina’s class fabulous? I took one from her a few years ago. Those shawls are so beautiful. The Sheep to shawl teams were both from my spinning guild. You’ll laugh – they both got the same score (97) but got points deducted for different reasons. A tie! I took a couple dye classes and a pine needle basket class – so fun. Those baskets are a little addicting. Leigh
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Wish I knew you would be there! On Sunday, I took the exploring foreign breeds class. We spun a sample of the Valois. Not something I would want to work with as I am partial to soft or luxury fiber. But the sheep are cute.
Hope you are beating the heat.
Those Valois were so cute! I’m not a spinner, so thanks for the heads up
Orenburg lace is so beautiful! What a great chance to take a class from Galina – that had to be so wonderful 🙂 Your samples are beautiful – have fun with it!