Tag Archives: Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival

Braided Wristlets Class Debut, singing, and more

Posted on May 17, 2016 | 3 comments

I had a super busy weekend, and knittingly, this was the highlight.

I taught my new Braided Wristlets class at Twisted. I designed this pattern to be a workshop in herringbone and other braids, two color stranded knitting, and color dominance. We did cover all these things, and had a great time, too. And I made a good start on another one of these for me.

I’ll be teaching this class at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in September. It will be an all day class on Saturday, September 24. Come and learn new skills with me!

But the weekend wasn’t all knitting. Sunday was Pentecost, and I organized and led music with the Pie Birds for worship. (The Pie Birds are a 3 part harmony group with guitars and mandolin: My friends Claudia and Becky and me.) So much work, so much fun. We sang Somewhere to Begin for the prelude; link provided if you want to give a listen. We closed the service with Turning of the World, with the congregation joining in.

We had a guest chorus from the Randolph-Macon Academy in Virgina sing for us. What a talented group of young people! They sang We Sing and All Creatures of Our God and King (not the version you might expect). Really wonderful. And they joined our choir for Spirit Come Down; it was so much fun to have all these voices singing with us.

I needed a recovery day on Monday!

3 Comments

Posted in classes, Knit, music, Pie Birds

Tagged braided wristlets, OFFF, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, singing

It’s a wrap! OFFF 2014

Posted on October 1, 2014 | 4 comments

What a glorious weekend: Slightly chilly mornings (sweater weather!) giving way to sunny afternoons and smiling crowds. Perfect. I taught Blocking on Friday, and Tink Drop Frog (how to fix mistakes) on Saturday. My students were charming and eager to become the bosses of their knitting! We blocked my Snowy Woods KAL cowl, among other things.

before blocking

after blocking

Sunday was my play day. I headed for the barns first, and I was not disappointed. This is Amy with one of the angora goats from The Pines Farm. Mohair on the hoof! Amy is wearing a sweater knit with mohair, and it is the most decadently soft fabric, with a luminous halo.

Can you even see where you’re going?

Haircut day!

The coat of an angora goat grows an inch per month. These goats are shorn every six months, now and in March, but they still won’t be cold this winter!

I was captivated by this display at Upstream Alpacas.

naturals?

or colors? I liked them both.

Natural colors are not boring.

For me this year, the fiber and spinning supplies were most enticing. Maybe because I already have more yarn than I can knit. No matter. Look at these spindles. The gateway drug to spinning.

Spindles at Carolina Homespun

I have several drop spindles, but haven’t yet heard the siren song of the wheel. Then I saw people trying the HansenCrafts miniSpinner. Look how portable this is. I had to try it, too. See my blue yarn?

There’s always a fleece sale on Sunday. The woman who lured us in here said that the first time she went, she bought two fleeces. And she didn’t have a spinning wheel, just a drop spindle. Uh-oh.

I bought a Kromski…

Kromski niddy-noddy, not a wheel! I wanted an upgrade from my one yard niddy-noddy; this one is a two yard model.

I did buy one skein of yarn, from Huckleberry Knits.

It’s Teri’s fault. I loved the glowing colors in her Glitz on the Ritz shawlette, so I had to check out this dyer, too. Oh, and see Sherece’s Hitofude? Teri knit that for her. What a great friend!

All in all, a perfect weekend. I spent some time with Lorajean and the divine Miss F in the Knitted Wit booth.

You have to start them young!

Did you go to OFFF? What tickled your fancy?

4 Comments

Posted in events, Knit, Portland area fun, spinning, yarn

Tagged fleece, OFFF, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, snowy woods cowl, spinning, yarn

OFFF 2014 is this coming weekend

Posted on September 24, 2014 | 4 comments

Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is this weekend. I’m really looking forward to it! I’m teaching on Friday and Saturday afternoons, and playing the rest of the time. The weather report is looking decent as of this moment, which would be great after last year’s monsoons.

Things I’m looking forward to:

Knitted Wit’s booth. Always lovely things there, and this year she’s debuting her Cotton Candy yarn, 100% merino super bulky. You can see my Big Leaf Scarf and pattern in her booth this weekend.

Hanging out with the Portland Spinnerati group. Always entertaining, and always inspiring!

I went to the group’s meet-up at the Oregon Historical Society for Worldwide Spin In Public Day last Saturday. I was the only drop spindler in a group of wheels, but it was all fun.

I’m also looking forward to shopping, and visiting the animals. For a much more comprehensive list of things to do at OFFF, see Mary Mooney’s post on the OregonLive Knitting blog. If you see me, say hello!

What’s on my needles? I’m almost done with my Snowy Woods Cowl that I’m doing for the knitalong. This is the last official week of the KAL, so there’s one more prize to be drawn next week. This week’s prize? Stitch markers, made by me. These feature leaves, snowflakes, and the blue of the custom dyed Snowy Woods colorway from Knitted Wit.

This cowl is coming with me to OFFF, where it will be part of my blocking class on Friday, 1 to 4 p.m. There’s still a little room in the class, and there’s no homework! Registration is onsite only at this point.

Are you going to OFFF, or another sheep and wool festival near you? Who’s going to Rhinebeck? (Someday, me…)

4 Comments

Posted in classes, events, Knit, Portland area fun, spinning, yarn

Tagged Big Leaf Scarf, Knitted Wit Cotton Candy, OFFF, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, snowy woods kal

A quickie

Posted on September 24, 2008 | 6 comments

Project, that is. Green mitts!

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is this weekend in Canby, and I’m planning to go down on Saturday as a first-timer. Knitted Wit will be selling her gorgeous hand-dyed yarns there, and she’ll also be selling my patterns. I’m knitting a sample project for her booth with her yarn and one of my free patterns, the chunky piano mitts. They work up really quickly! Each one of these takes me about an hour and a half. I love this yarn; it’s a smooth plyed wool and it feels great to knit with it. The color is actually much more vibrant than this; I just can’t capture it with my camera.

Of course, I can never do the exact same thing twice, so I played with the thumb gore increases. The one on the left is increased by knitting into the stitch below, and the one on the right is a paired m1 lifted increase (this side leans right, other side of thumb leans left). I like the mitt on the left better because it’s smooth instead of stair stepped, but that’s the one I made second.

And since there was some yarn left, I started another freebie of mine, Baba’s Bed Socks. The pattern calls for two strands of Wool-Ease (light worsted) but this chunky yarn makes a fine substitute. Free patterns are available on the sidebar of this blog. It’s kind of fun revisiting my old patterns; it’s like visiting old friends.