LIFE IS TENUOUS

Well, I haven't posted for a while as we've had a very rough few weeks at my house.  My husband and I had just returned from a great vacation to Northern New Mexico and the Taos Wool Festival.  Then, in the blink of an eye, he was being rushed into emergency surgery and almost lost his life.  After spending five days in ICU and another five in the hospital, he is now at home recuperating.  I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that life is tenuous and should never be taken for granted.  This experience really puts a lot of things into perspective -- like -- don't sweat the small stuff and look around and appreciate your life.   So now I am going to finish the post I began just hours before rushing my husband to the ER.

One of our favorite times of the year is when summer is over, the crowds have dwindled and we can sit on the beach and only see a handful of beachgoers.  This is a picture down at Capistrano Beach on the last day of summer.  Oh, yeah!

Then, the next weekend, we boarded Amtrak's Southwest Super Chief for a 16 hour train ride to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a short train ride from the San Juan Capistrano train station.  

We left L.A. at 6:45 p.m. and arrived in N.Mexico at noon the next day.  Sleeping on the train was not the greatest experience, but I know what to do next time -- bring a pillow and a small blanket.  Once the sun came up, the scenery from the train was beautiful.  Knitting in my seat and looking out the window of the train was really great fun.

The first stop on our trip was the Aliento B&B just south of Santa Fe.  I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.  Ruth and Chrissy were wonderful.  Ruth is a glass artist and has a glass school on the grounds.  We felt so at home and the setting was beautiful. Here's a couple shots from the chairs outside our room where we were enjoying a glass of wine in the early evening. Earlier in the day, we drove the 9 miles into Santa Fe and walked around.

The next day we headed east to Las Vegas and Mora, N.M., a couple of small towns with weaving stores/galleries.  Also, Mora is home to Victory Ranch Alpacas.  We stopped to see the ranch which is featured in the book Sheared Spirit.  They have about 200 alpacas grazing out in their pastures.

Here are a couple pictures of baby alpacas.  They are so cute.  The buff colored was probably a couple of months old.  The little dark brown baby had just been born that morning.  Here he is with his protective mamma.

We then set off over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to our next destination --  Chimayo and the Espanola Valley, the very heart of weaving in Northern N.M.  We spent two nights at Casa Escondidas, a charming B&B.  Our room was on the second floor (to the left in the picture) and we had this wonderful deck right off our room.  From the deck we could see the surrounding area and it was a magnificent view, especially in the evening.  

Here's a picture of our lovely room.  It was idyllic and filled with antiques.

Here's a view from the deck looking to the mountains.

We spent a couple of days exploring the area and made a visit to the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center.  This is a nonprofit organization and was well worth the visit.  They have a classroom area with many, many looms as well as a gallery of members' work and a store.  I bought several bags of dried plant materials for natural dyeing:  madder, cosmos, and tansy. 

Around the Chimayo area, we explored Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu -- areas where famous artist, Georgia O'Keefe, hung out.

Our final destination was Taos and the Old Taos Guesthouse B&B for four nights.  I so love to stay here.  Tim and Leslie were the best hosts.  Each morning, they fed us so well - a hot breakfast of homemade muffins and frittata just out of the oven, homemade granola, yogurt, a big bowl of fresh fruit.  Great coffee. We spent many afternoons sitting out in the back on the big swing looking out to the valley or in the dining room with a cup of tea and knitting. We couldn't have felt more welcome and comfortable.  

We walked into town a couple of times (about a mile) and just down the road from the Old Taos Guesthouse, we encountered a small farm.  

What first caught our eye when we drove by were a couple of Churro sheep rams so we decided to take a walk down to the farm one morning.  We were invited onto the property by Patricia and her mother, Anna, who are working hard to bring the farm back to life, the way it was when Patricia's grandparents farmed the land.  She is also working to preserve the endangered Churro sheep breed.  

Among her other animals are some cashmere goats.  Of course, being a spinner, I was delighted to see these beautiful little animals, especially how they had to climb right into their feeding trough.

The Taos Wool Festival was so much fun.  I don't really have any decent pictures, but it was held at Kit Carson Park in the heart of town.  I managed to buy three fleeces:  a chocolate brown, a gray and a white from a wool co-op in Casper, WY -- Dawn and Mike DeFreece -- who were also staying at the Taos Guesthouse.  I saw many vendors at this show that I had never seen before.  Elsa Wool Company had amazing Cormo wool yarn from sheep raised in Montana. I bought some handpainted kid mohair roving from Kai Ranch from Texas -- also featured in Sheared Spirit. And bought yarn from Plain and Fancy Yarns, also from Texas.  I visited LaLana Wools as well as Rio Grande Weavers, and had lamb shish-kabob at the festival.  We visited a delightful yarn store nearby called Taos Sunflower, only to learn they were closing and going to the internet two days later, a real loss for the area.  I bought roving from a local artist, Robin Pascal -- handpainted local Corriedale/silk.   I think this is a trip I may want to make again next year.   

And finally, here is a farewell to New Mexico -- a beautiful sunset -- and many memories until our next trip.  We had fabulous weather (high 70's and low 80's) only to wake up to snow on the local mountains the morning we were leaving.  Oh, boy -- we were not prepared for that kind of weather. 

Upon arriving home -- and after the calamitous health issue with my husband -- I had to get my act together in a big hurry for the Artistic License Show.  I have no pictures, but Carrie Sommer, one of the other artists, took pictures which can be seen at her blog:  http://www. sommerdesigns.typepad.com  Check out her blog posts of Oct. 27th and 28th.

And now, I am working on getting my act together again for the Torrance Fiber Fest this weekend on Sunday, Nov. 2nd -- 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.   This festival is sponsored by the S.Calif. Handweavers Guild.  My booth will feature lots of handpainted spinning fibers, handspun and handpainted yarns.  Also, Margie will have lots of her popular handspun mohair yarns.  Hope to see lots of friends there.  For more information, go to:  www.schg.org

That's it for now.  Whew!  

APPLE PICKING TIME (ALMOST)
Well, my Fuji apples are almost ready to be harvested. This is the fourth year and we finally have a decent crop. The real trick is to let them ripen on the tree and pick them before the racoons get to them. We have had the unfortunate experience of having every single apple disappear from the tree overnight -- not a core or seed to be found -- as if they were abducted by aliens!

Russian sage -- one of my most favorite garden plants -- is in full bloom.

I have been hard at work putting together a sock yarn order which will wing its way to The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn, New York, this coming Monday. So all of you sock knitters who frequent The Yarn Tree (and who read my blog) should pop into Linda's store next weekend. Here's a sampling of some of what I've been working on drying on the rack.

And when I need a break from several hours of dyeing in my studio -- referred to affectionately by me as "the sweat shop" -- here's where I cool off. A nice little swim sure clears the head and makes life a little easier. And . . . yes . . . I know . . . I'm lucky.

I continue to knit and weave and spin, getting ready for the Artistic License Fair in Costa Mesa, October 24th and 25th. Here's a scarf knit from my handspun yarn. I spun two rovings I handpainted first and then plied together -- one is baby camel and silk and the other is merino and cashmere. I just love knitting with varigated handspun because the journey of color is different each time.

Here's a lacey scarf I just started, using the Old Shale pattern. This scarf is knit stranding two yarns from Habu Textiles which I handpainted. One is a silk boucle and the other is a silk/kid mohair laceweight yarn.

And here are some handspun yarns I've been working on.

After taking spinning with Judith MacKenzie McCuin at Golden Gate Fiber Institute this summer, I stepped out of my spinning box, so to speak, and tried my hand at some chunkier yarns. And, guess what! I like what I've done and it's fun.

Speaking of the Golden Gate Fiber Institute, I just sent in my registration form this week for the Winter Intensives (Jan. 5th through 11th). I had so much fun at the Summer Intensives, I couldn't wait to sign up again. This time I'm taking knitting with Kathryn Alexander, who is so full of energy and color, color, color is her forte. And I am also taking garment design with Jeane deCoster, who is a delight and full of creativity and ideas. Six days of classes, mornings and afternoons. Food prepared by a Culinary Institute chef. Gourmet coffee in the morning. Spinning in the evenings. It just can't be passed up. For information on GGFI, go to: http://www.goldengatefiberinstitute.org/

TAOS WOOL FESTIVAL This year, I am foregoing my annual trip to Rhinebeck -- the New York Sheep and Wool Festival -- in favor of a trip to the Taos Wool Festival in Northern New Mexico. My husband and I wanted an adventure, so this sounded great. We're taking a train to Albuquerque and we can get on board right here in San Juan Capistrano and change trains at Union Station in L.A. We'll have a night in a B&B near Santa Fe at a glass art school, two nights in Chimayo at a B&B called Casa Escondidas, and four nights at the Taos Guest House B&B. We've never been to the wool festival at Taos so it should be a new and fun excursion. And we'll have days to explore all of the fiber and weaving and historical spots in the area. I might even come back with another fleece or some Texas mohair.

All for now -- down to the beach -- watch the sunset while wolfing down a fish taco!!

LATE SUMMER IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Okay, okay -- so blogging seems to have taken a back seat to enjoying late summer in Southern California where I live. It's been a while since I blogged, but oh, well! High on my list is enjoying the beach as often as possible by taking a picnic dinner down to the sand to watch the sunset. And since it was Labor Day yesterday -- the official last day of summer -- the crowds have thinned, I say with my fingers crossed.

My garden abounds with gold finches, little twitter birds (?), Monarch butterflies as well as Swallowtails. My tomato bushes are in their last stages of producing lovely fruit. We have tomatoes in just about anything and everything we can put them in. Eating homegrown tomatoes spoils you.

And with the Artistic License arts and crafts show fast approaching, I dusted off my loom, warped it up and wove a couple of scarves this past week. This is one of my favorite patterns, Star Twill, woven with laceweight yarns from Toots LeBlanc. The white is a merino wool/angora blend and the brown is a pygora/blueface leicester blend.

And I so loved the Morning Surf scarf that I knit a couple months ago, I decided to knit another one. Like the last time, I used my hand-dyed handspun yarn which seems to knit up so beautifully in this pattern. The fiber blend here is a superfine merino wool with tussah silk.

The other fun thing that has been occupying a good deal of my time lately is natural dyeing. Shortly after I returned from Golden Gate Fiber Institute, a wonderful book arrived from Australia: "Eco Colour" by fiber artist, India Flint. Unfortunately, this book is not available in the US (yet). If you want to read more about India, visit her blog and her website: http://prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com/ and http://www.indiaflint.com/

This is an absolutely great book. India got me motivated to go out and forage around the area where I live and collect some eucalyptus leaves for dyeing. I tried both windfallen dried leaves and leaves right off the tree. I also had been collecting the coreopsis flower tops from my garden all summer, so they went into a dyepot. Here is the outcome of a day's worth of dyeing. Most of these were done in the coreopsis pot. The two skeins on the top and middle right were from eucalyptus brewed up by my friend, Karen.

These little exemplar skeins are from fiber I dyed with coreopsis. The two middle skeins were put in the coreopsis dyepot, one full strength, and one diluted a bit. The butter yellow was from the same dyepot after vinegar was added -- it turned the dyebath yellow. The bottom skein is from Karen's eucalyptus dyebath.


Here are some pretty skeins of the natural dyed yarn, half with coreopsis and half with the eucalyptus I foraged. These are for my own consumption since I am not sure how light fast these colors will be. They are gorgeous and I can't wait to knit or weave with them.

HEADS UP ON COMING EVENTS:

Friday, September 19th: Spinning at Common Threads in Encinitas.

Friday/Saturday, October 24th and 25th: Artistic License Fair at Estancia Park in Costa Mesa. I will have a booth with my handwovens, handknits, beautiful hand-dyed yarns and handspun yarns.

Sunday, November 2nd: The Torrance Fiber Fest put on by the Southern California Handweavers Guild. I will have a booth with my hand-dyed yarns and handpainted spinning fibers. www.schg.org

March, 2009: Assn. of Southern California Handweavers conference in Riverside, CA. For more information and registration, visit: http://www.aschsite.org/

GOLDEN GATE FIBER INSTITUTE ROCKS!

Margie and Karen and I returned from Golden Gate Fiber Institute last Monday evening, having had a wonderul week of fiber heaven at Point Bonita just north of San Francisco.

We were actually west of the Golden Gate Bridge and the weather was, well, let's say, it didn't seem like the end of July -- more like February or March -- but we were bundled up.

We felt like we were at summer girl scout camp, but we each had our own bunk bed, and the food was gourmet, prepared by a chef from the Culinary Institute and his crew -- lots of vegetarian fare, too. And the coffee, OMG! It was organic and delicious -- no institutional coffee. They had it brewed up and ready to go at 6:30 a.m. each morning for the coffee addicts.

We had six days of intensive workshops. Each morning before class, and at other times when we had a little bit of down time, we took walks on the Point Bonita headlands. The weather there was definitely not what we are used to in So.Cal. We felt like we were hiking along the headlands of Scotland, with a stiff wind -- did I mention gale force winds?

There was a trail down to the beach.

These are some pictures of one of the few times we had warm sunshine. We saw lots of wildlife -- many deer, quail, foxes, and naughty racoons.

We all took natural dyeing from Darlene Hayes of Hand Jive. She did a tremendous job of setting up our dye area outside along one of the buildings.

Darlene had great little lectures on natural dyeing and did her best to demystify a lot of the math involved in deciding how much mordant and dye stuff for the amount of fiber we were dyeing in each batch. Here are some pictures of our skeins drying on the trees. These are black walnut, dillweed and mullein.

Here are some skeins of cochenille, logwood, indigo and osage orange.

And here are my yarns -- superwash merino fingering yarn provided by Darlene.

On Saturday and Sunday, we got to do our own thing and decide amongst our group the dyepots we wanted to do. These skeins are all of my handspun. The light blue is indigo, the yellow is osage orange, the green skein is osage orange overdyed with indigo, and the very dark blue is logwood.

The other workshop we all took was spinning with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. I cannot begin to tell you the wealth of knowledge Judith has and the wonderful information I came away with. I learned so many new things about spinning, spun fibers I had never spun before, tried new techniques of spinning, and learned new carding techniques. And, after six days, I have to say that we only scratched the surface of Judith's knowledge of spinning and fibers. It was an amazing class taught by an amazing woman. Here's Jane at the electric drumcarder. You don't even want to try that carder unless you have lots of $$$$ -- you will totally want one. Many students were working night and day to make batts to take home.

And here are Heather (all the way from New Zealand) and Ann at their wheels. Many of us spent each evening after dinner spinning with our other friends, along with Judith, who was very generous with her time.

Each evening after dinner we all met in the large meeting room and door prizes were awarded. Morgaine and Judith worked it out so that everyone got a door prize over the course of four nights. There were some great prizes, all donated by vendors. In addition to dyeing and spinning, other classes offered were felted hats, knotted pile weaving, Estonian lace knitting, and freeform crochet, of course, all taught by fantastic teachers. This was the first of hopefully many workshop intensives to be put on by Golden Gate Fiber Institute and was well worth the trip up to Point Bonita. Winter intensives are scheduled for Jan. 5th-11th, 2009. I know I will be there. [ www.goldengatefiberinstitute.org ]

SPINNING AT COMMON THREADS - FRIDAY 8/15

Just a reminder that our little spinning group will be meeting at Common Threads in Encinitas from about 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. next Friday, August 15th. Please join us with your wheel or drop spindle. You can call Common Threads for more information at (760) 436-6119.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

GOLDEN GATE FIBER INSTITUTE

This is going to be a short post as I am packing my van for the trip with Margie and Karen up to San Francisco (Point Bonita) to attend the summer intensive workshops at Golden Gate Fiber Institute. We'll be gone until August 3rd and it should be fun. We're all taking natural dyeing with Darlene Hayes and spinning with Judith MacKenzie McCuin.

Friday night, Paul and I watched Huell Howser's show on San Onofre State Beach -- so close to us -- so we decided to take a walk down there to Trestles yesterday. It was amazing the amount of flora and fauna we took in. Here's the famous trestles of Trestles Beach. We watched several Amtrak and Metrolink trains roll by. The ocean is just to the right.

San Mateo Creek runs down through Trestles in the winter, but in the summer, a sand berm causes the water to back up and make a beautiful marshy area which is rich with fish and wild life. We saw lots of fish and birds. (That's the railroad bridge in the background.)

It's hard to see, but there is a great blue heron in the middle of this picture.

On the walk down to the beach, we saw lots of plants: wild roses, many types of trees, including this blue elder that had pale blue berries and pale yellow flowers.

And in amongst the dry brush, this lovely white flower was blooming. Thanks, Huell, for getting us out to do some exploring of a very close natural area.

And I finished my Morning Surf Scarf yesterday and washed and blocked it. It's quite lovely and the blueface leicester wool is so soft.

And I started a new scarf with some of my handspun. It's extrafine merino wool and bombyx silk (50/50) that I dyed in pale colors of yellow, peach and denim blue. I am using a "tilting block" pattern from the Barbara Walker Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. This pattern is very easy but looks complicated. An easy project to take along up to Golden Gate Fiber Institute this week.

Will report back on our trip up north.