STUFF HAPPENS ALONG WITH OTHER STUFF

I usually don't talk about really personal things on my blog, but this past week has been a little over the top for me.  In the midst of preparing for the Southern California Handweavers Conference, my 22-year-old son had a head-on collision on his bicycle with another bicyclist. He was seriously injured and broke his nose and bones around one of his eyes.  This necessitated reconstructive plastic surgery and a four-day stay in the hospital. I've been kind of a basketcase, and holding it together by a thread.  Good news is that he's banged up pretty badly, but he's on the mend.  So . . . friends out there, send some good thoughts this way, okay? 

Friday, Saturday and Sunday marked the Southern California Handweavers Conference out in Riverside.  I made a huge effort to be there because I didn't want to back out at the last minute.  I took some pictures of the goings on at the conference.   Many good classes,guild booths, vendors, and the gallery exhibits of fiber artists' work and the fashion show garments were some of the best I've seen at this local conference.  

Here is Gwen Powell of the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild at one of the wheels in the guild's booth.  

Gwen did a terrific job of luring new spinners into the booth and getting them on wheels and drop spindles.  She also conducted mini-competitions including these newbie spinners and some of the more experienced spinners.  She had a great array of prizes for the winners, all of which were donated.  Here are some of the participants.  

Many of the local weaving and spinning guilds had booths that had been decorated with items made by guild members.  Here is the booth done by South Coast Weavers and Spinners, the guild to which I belong.  

Here is a display of beautifully woven and colorful scarves by another guild.

I'm not positive, but I think this was the Saturday Spinners' Guild booth.

And another guild booth.  I didn't photograph all of them, but for all of the local conferences I have attended, these were some of the best booths I have seen.  Each guild took so much time and effort at making each booth special.

The vendor hall featured top notch vendors, all of whom had wonderful products, many of them handcrafted.  Morgaine Wilder, well known owner of Carolina Homespun, had a wonderful booth as usual.  www.carolinahomespun.com     Kristine Brooks of Curious Creek Fibers (San Diego) was in the Carolina Homespun booth, as were Kristine's beautiful fibers and yarns. www.curiouscreek.com    It was a delight to have my booth across from theirs.  

Nancy Colburn owner of Chameleon Colorworks had a beautiful array of her hand-dyed yarns and fibers.  She's got great sock yarns and patterns to go with them, and great spinning fibers, including the new Optim fiber.  Her website is:  www.chameleoncolorworks.com

Here's a peek at the Redfish Dyeworks booth.  So many lovely colors of 20/2 spun silk for weaving and knitting.  Sadly, Sandy and Elf were all out of their wonderful handpainted rovings, having sold them all at Stitches West the week before.  I was all set to pick up a few more for my stash.  Dang!  Here's their website:   http:redfishdyeworks.com

Some of the other vendors were Custom Handweaving from Redondo Beach, Nebo Rock Textiles from Covelo, John Marshall (silk guru) also from Covelo, Griffin Dyeworks, Village Spinning and Weaving, Just Our Yarns from Virginia, Northwest Looms, Glimakra Looms, Clemes & Clemes (handcards and spinning wheels) from Pinole, CA.  

I did manage to purchase a beautifully handcrafted Niddy Noddy from Northwest Looms, a set of Judith MacKenzie McCuin's acid dyes from Carolina Homespun, and a raw mohair fleece from Nebo Rock.  

And, of course, Margie and I had a booth for Capistrano Fiber Arts Studio.  Here are some pictures.  Margie's handspun mohair yarns (which she also sells at Strands and Stitches in Laguna Beach).  And some of my handpainted merino rovings.

More of my handpainted rovings -- merino/angora/silk, merino/bombyx silk and just plain merino.

Here's a rack of handpainted blueface leicester rovings.  Some of these lovelies will be posted in my Etsy shop this week.   www.capistranofiberarts.etsy.com

Our friend, Pam, shared the room at the Marriott with us and on Saturday night, we treated ourselves to a fabulous dinner at the Spanish restaurant, Sevilla.  So many exotic tastes and a picture of sangria.  All in all, we had a wonderful weekend.

So now it's back to the real world, catching my breath and nursing my baby back to health (well, he's 22 but he's still my baby) and off to the plastic surgeon today for removal of stitches, stints, and staples today. And, BTW, thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth at the conference with getting well wishes for my son.