Summertime Ventures

In August, my friends and I attended Golden Gate Fiber Institute at Point Bonita YMCA camp just north of San Francisco on the Marin headlands. This is a picture of our dorms and classrooms. The weather hovered in the 55-60 degree range, while 10 minutes away inland, it broiled.

It's been almost a month since we returned from Golden Gate Fiber Institute, having had the most wonderful time at "summer camp". I roomed with four of my good buds -- Margie, Pam, Karen and Caryl -- and we had a week of great classes, from spinning art yarn, spindling, weaving, shibori dyeing and sock knitting. Amazing food by culinary institute chefs -- lots of vegetarian fare that was so delicious. And camaraderie with almost 75 other fiber lovers. Far from the bustle of the city, Point Bonita offers a rustic, isolated environment with a view back towards San Francisco.

The remnants of the military installation and bunkers are scattered around the headlands. I think I read that the base and bunkers date from the early 1900's.

Over the hill from us, there is still a working military base.

Our dorm room was perfect and we snuggled up at night when the fog rolled in and the wind whistled through the windows and we could hear the fog horn.

Our art yarn spinning class was in the big meeting room.

We had a great teacher -- Sarah Anderson -- who stepped in at the 11th hour when Jacey Boggs wasn't able to make it due to complications that arose after the birth of her son in June. We missed Jacey, for sure, but Sarah did a fantastic job. We were amazed at her knowledge and skills.

Some of Sarah's beautiful sample yarns. We all drooled.

Students spun coiled yarns.

And core spun yarns -- among the many yarns we learned.

Tracy shows off a skein she spun using everyone's fluff and stuff that had fallen on the floor, while Karen ponders on what belly dancing technique she'll show us that evening.

Spindling with Abby Franqemont was more than we could ask for. Abby's skills with the spindle were amazing. I was so happy to learn to use my bottom whorl spindles, which I have always avoided. Abby learned to spindle at age 5 when her family moved to Peru. Her ability to spin cotton blew us away. We started the class by spinning on a rock, then we made our own spindle with a ball of clay and a bamboo skewer. On the last day, our class took to the road and walked from classroom to classroom spindling the whole way.

Some of my classmates.

Here's Judith's shibori and weaving class with their dyepots going.

A dyepot pot with shibori and a dyed warp.

Out of the dyepot and drying in the sun (??? no!)

Margie models her indigo-dyed shibori scarf and a skein of art yarn from Sarah's class.

On the way home, we stayed in San Luis Obispo for the night, but stopped for tacos in San Miguel and visited the mission there.

A room with an old spinning wheel, loom and drying rack for wool.

And even though it's not been a month since we returned from GGFI, we're all anxiously awaiting word on what wonderful teachers and classes Morgaine and Judith will have in store for us at summer camp 2011. It doesn't hurt to have something to look forward to for the coming year.