Knitting Boot Camp January 2017

Buellwood Weaver and Fiber Artist Guild met Monday January 20th at Gloria Dei Church in Hancock, MI. Our guild is growing with new members each week. To entertain the group before our short business meetings we have show and tell and a short program. The program for this meeting was 'How to read a Knitting Pattern' presented by Clare our resident expert knitter. Not only did she answer questions we had about patterns that were giving us difficulty but she prepared some knit swatches to help us understand using the given gauge to select a proper yarn or needle substitution for a project we would like to knit.

woven top accents knit hat.

Clare just finished her final project for her Fiber Class at Finlandia so she shared with us the hats she created each using at least two fiber techniques in their construction. The ladies had a good time trying on Clare's creations and modeling them for my photos.

Kathie liked this little number

Woven Bonnet worn in first picture

knit with Inkle band accent

Clare has her favorite knit hat with an Inkle band

close up of Clare's fine knitting and band.

 Our show and tell continued with Anita, a new member who has moved up here from Virginia sharing samples of her Bobbin Lace work. Anita brought in two examples of her Bobbin Lace, Torchon Lace which uses the Torchon Grid to make squares and rectangles and more geometric designs such as the pink lace shown here. The other I believe was a sample of Milanese Lace which allows more curves in the design. 

 

torchon Lace on grid background

Dawn has been busy dying and knitting hats, although she admits she is giving away her hats as fast as she can knit them. These beautiful balls of yarn were dyed in Buckthorn bark with a pre soak in ammonia. The rose was the original color and the rust was after a giving the yarn an iron after bath and the lighter color from a dye bath with the color exhausted. Dawn will be teaching a natural dye class at the Porkies Folk School in July 2017 http://porkies.org/folk-school/workshops/

faucet base

Karen once again brought in a number of woven baskets she has been working on. She is pretty animated and it is hard to catch a picture of her that is not blurred. Her baskets are each a piece of art. The little one was created with Iris leaves and the base is an antique faucet handle. What a clever base this made for her basket.

One series of baskets each has a title as 'Helix' or 'Kaleidoscope' each is made of a variety of barks. Maybe a spruce outer and willow or cedar interior and other barks such as elm or poplar all her bark is from a fallen source. She is environmentally conscious of what she gathers for her baskets. All lovely examples are finished off with just the right embellishment.
Karen teaches her basket techniques all across the country. She will be teaching a basket and star class at the Porkies this summer in August 2017.

Needle case class project

Check out the class schedules at http://porkies.org/folk-school/workshops/

love this basket!

 Carol has been half way around the world in Australia and besides coming home with a slight tan -something Scandinavians do not easily achieve- she had a few fiber treasures to share. A felted Angel ornament with embossed motifs in the gown, a cleaver doll to add to her collection and two beautiful Eco dyed scarves. 

Detail Eco dyed scarf

 

Australian Doll

felted Angle 

Obituary: Randall Darwall a talented weaver and designer from Cape Cod died last month. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Rhode Island at Convergence 2014.  I made the mistake of admiring his garments and scarves - all of which were beautiful. Randall and his partner Bryan were in the booth selling his garments. As lovely as his use of color and his weaving was, I could not afford a woven jacket and I thought I had enough scarves to last a lifetime. I was encouraged to try on a few just for fun, they quickly found a hand dyed garment that was made just "for me". They were certainly two charmers.
check out Randall's work at http://www.randalldarwall.com/