Yes, Another Fiber Festival

Not just any fiber festival, mind you. Knot Another Fiber Festival! On October 28th, two friends and I ventured up the Columbia River Gorge to the town of The Dalles to attend Knot Another Fiber Festival or KAFF. My goal, in addition to enjoying time with friends, was to look for crochet aware vendors and yarns that are produced keeping the health of the planet in mind. I'm using the term crochet aware rather than crochet friendly and defining it as a vendor who remembers that crocheters, as well as knitters, buy yarn. They could have crocheted samples in their booth or sell hooks or other crochet notions. Other vendors aren't necessarily unfriendly to crochet, but they might not keep it in mind when marketing their products. 

The marketplace at KAFF wasn't huge, but there was plenty to choose from. All of the vendors highlighted below are either environmentally conscious, crochet friendly or both.

Sincere Sheep

The first booth I stopped in was Sincere Sheep from Napa Valley, CA. They produce single source, breed specific, naturally dyed yarns.  Sincere Sheep's fiber and other supplies are purchased from domestic producers who work sustainably and support their local economies. Often naturally dyed yarns have muted colors. These can be lovely, but sometimes we crafters want more intense colors. Look at some of the yarn Sincere Sheep offers. Everything from deep plum to sky blue to bright green.

They also have a nice selection of project bags, notions, soaps and other accessories. 

I picked up this little crochet hook gauge. A lot of gauges are made with holes that work fine for knitting needles but not so well for hooks because the head of the hook doesn't fit through the hole. This gauge has notches so you can measure the shaft of the hook where you need to. I'd been looking for something like this for a while.

Abundant Earth Fiber

Down the aisle I found Abundant Earth Fiber. They are a small woolen mill on Whidbey Island, WA that produces small batches of domestically sourced yarn. Much of their fiber is from local farms or the Pacific Northwest region. 

Abundant Earth processes fibers from sheep, goats, alpaca, and rabbits. See this page on their website for an interesting description of their wool including a list of the many breeds they work with. 

In addition to yarn and fiber, Abundant Earth sells kits for home dyeing. Here is Lydia (right) describing some of the ways the dye kit can be used.

This intrigued me so much that I purchased one. Stay tuned for future blog posts on my dyeing adventures. I also acquired 3 skeins of Abundant Earth's lovely BFL/silk. I've got a special project planned for this yarn. You'll hear more about that in the future too.

Three Fates Yarns

Another booth offering some yarn with an eye to sustainability was Three Fates Yarns owned and operated by my friend Stephania. I know sustainability is important to her because when she's not dyeing and selling yarn she works as the sustainability coordinator at a community college. Among the yarns she sells is some made from upcycled waste merino and some from climate beneficial rambouillet. For more on climate beneficial wool and carbon farming, see the Fibershed website. Carbon farming involves agriculture practices that help sequester carbon in the soil and thus combat global warming.

In addition to the yarns above, Stephania recently completed a Kick Starter project where she purchased Gotland fleeces from small local farms, had them spun at a local mill then dyed the yarn herself. What a great way to support local businesses and a heritage breed.

Stephania also had a crocheted shawlette on display in her booth. It's the Rowan Berry by Laurinda Reddig. 

Shaggy Bear Farms

I was glad to see Shaggy Bear Farms at this festival. All of their yarn comes from the animals on their own farm here in the Willamette Valley. This is the ultimate in local yarn. Wendy at Shaggy Bear told me they have 38 breeds of sheep, goats, alpacas and llamas including, as the sign below says, rare and endangered breeds. She doesn't have a website, but here's an interview with her from a few years back. I've worked with Wendy's yarn several times, and it's lovely.

Thistle and Hart

Thistle and Hart Fiber Co. sources all of their fiber and yarn from farms using sustainable practices. They're also an equal crafting opportunity company and dye with all fiber crafts in mind - crochet, knitting, spinning, felting, and weaving. If you've ever tried to crochet with a lovely variegated yarn only to find the colors pooling unattractively, you'll know how important this is. Likely that yarn was dyed with the amount of yarn used by knit stitches in mind. It's so nice to find another indie dyer who is both environmentally conscious and crochet aware. In her booth at KAFF Becky had two crocheted shawls on display. The brown one in the photo below is Tranquille by Janet Brani. 

The blue shawl below is the Klaziena Shawl by Kirsten Bishop. I love it's vintage look.

Despondent Dyes

It's always fun to see the ladies from Despondent Dyes. I get such a kick out of their motto.

They were also showing off the Thai Crochet Cowl by Hannah Owens. I think it's gorgeous in this yarn. It looks so squishy.

Willamette Valley Wool Company

The Robin's Wings Shawl by Laurinda Reddig was on display in the Willamette Valley Wool Company booth (Note: According to their Facebook page, their website is temporarily down.) 

Their large display included a great range of colors. Here are just a few.

I was excited to see someone crocheting in the Willamette Valley Wool Co. booth. I've seen a lot of knitters and spinners in booths at fiber festivals but seeing a crocheter has been rare in my experience. That crocheter was Jeananne Atthowe who is not only a crocheter but also a crochet designer. She and knitwear designer Angela Westover sell their patterns at Cerulean Orchid.

Candy Skein

Tami of Candy Skein had the Autumn Leaves Shawlette by Lindsey Stephens on display in her booth next to some lovely, soft yarn. 

If you happen to be in the Astoria, OR area, check out Tami's new brick and mortar shop at 382 12th St.

Rock N' More Accents

I mentioned Rock N' More Accents (aka Spinning Mind Designs) in my last post on the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. In her booth at KAFF, she had many of her magnetic shawl clasps displayed on crocheted swatches and shawls. The folded shawl in the first picture below is the beautiful Porcelain Berry by Elena Fedotova.

The magnets on those shawl clasps, by the way, are super strong. If you use one to secure your shawl to your blouse, there's no way your shawl will slip.

That's the last fiber festival I'll be attending this year. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of vendors who remembered to include us crocheters or kept the environment in mind in their business practices or both. I like to vote with my wallet and support businesses whose values mirror my own. Do you have any favorite environmentally aware and/or crochet aware yarn sellers? Comment below! Thanks for stopping by.

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival and Why I Might Become A Luddite

I'm a bit late with a post about this year's Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival held September 22nd and 23rd. I can sometimes procrastinate, but this time it's not my fault. It's Microsoft's fault! Seriously, it is! [If you don't care to read a rant about technology, skip the rest of this paragraph.] My computer got automatic Windows updates on September 25th and 26th and promptly ground to a halt. It ran. It even booted into Windows. But it ran so slowly that it was unusable. For example, when I clicked on the Chrome icon nothing happened. I waited. Got up to make a cup of tea. Came back to find the window for Chrome open but the page still trying to load.Tried to open Task Manager to see what might be wrong. Decided to clean the cat boxes while waiting. Came back and found Task Manager trying to open but blank. Ten minutes later Task Manager completed opening and told me my hard drive usage was at 100%. Now, just a minute (or 10). I know that I have gigs and gigs of space on my hard drive so this makes no sense. I used my tablet to google the issue, and sure enough others have had this problem after Windows updates. There are many pages with lists of possible solutions so I started working through them. Two weeks later, I had tried everything I could find except the nuclear option: reinstall Windows. It was that or pull this machine's plug for good. So, reluctantly I clicked the button to reinstall. Bottom line, it fixed the problem but uninstalled a lot of my software. To Microsoft's credit, they popped up a warning saying this would happen. But why did they uninstall their own applications (Office), but leave some third party applications alone? Bless their hearts, at least they didn't touch my data files. 

So, yes. I yearn to become a Luddite* and pull the plugs on all my electronics especially after having spent time at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival where all crafts are hand made and the most complicated machine is a spinning wheel. You knew I'd get around to talking about OFFF eventually, didn't you? 

OFFF, as usual, was just loaded with fibery fun. Unfortunately, I just got back in town from a vacation on the 22nd so I only had one day to enjoy it. My first stop was my CGOA chapter's display. We are Always In Stitches, and we meet in Tigard, OR on the second Saturday of each month. See our website for location and time and come join us if you're in the area. Every year we have a display of crochet at OFFF. Here's what this year's looked like.

Our display was conveniently located outside the gallery displaying the entries in the fiber arts competitions. Here are some ribbon winners in the crochet competition. The tan shawl on the left was the Grand Champion and was made by my friend Connie. The photo doesn't do it justice. It's in lace weight yarn and just a great piece. The doily on the right was Champion in it's category and also exceptional. The brown/purple gradient is one of my entries - the Decadent Bliss shawl pattern by Laurinda Reddig.

Some more crochet entries. This is called the Funky Chunky hat. :-) What fun.

Another of my entries. Wanderin' and Wonderin' also by Laurinda Reddig. I do like Laurinda's patterns!

I wish I had a better photo of this lovely shawl and also knew the name of the pattern.

This year's featured craft was felting. There were some absolutely amazing entries.

The next one is a tower on a rotating base. Incredible.

Some closeups of parts of the tower

I was pleased to see crochet displayed by some of the vendors this year. I always look for crochet friendly vendors and support them as much as I can. Lilliput Yarn had a lot of shawls displayed in their booth, and three of them were crocheted. I also love that the name of her business was inspired by her Corgi, and her yarns have dog related names.

This is the Lost Lake Shawl by Noriko Ho. It was the pattern for this year's Rose City Yarn Crawl mystery crochet along.

This lavender shawl was also made from a Rose City Yarn Crawl mystery crochet along pattern. Vicki's Hike by Julie Blagojevich was the pattern for 2017.

Lastly this is the Taegan Shawl by Kendrea Beers.

It's not surprising the next vendors chose to display a crocheted shawl since they're makers of hooks. Gina and Rob of Treasured Hooks make hand turned hooks in a variety of shapes to fit any hand. 

They had a version of the popular Virus Shawl by Julia Marquardt in their booth. 

Rock N' More Accents, a maker of magnetic shawl clasps had this gorgeous shawl in her booth. I didn't get a chance to ask the pattern name, but it looks like the Sunset Shawl by Laurinda Reddig. It's pinned with a lovely amethyst crystal. 

That's all I had time for at OFFF this year. Next year I'll have to remember not to schedule a vacation that will overlap it.

*Postscript regarding Luddites

You might be familiar with the commonly accepted definition of the term Luddite as a person who is opposed to progress and technology, and that is the way I used it above. However, this is a bit unfair to the original Luddites. They were a group of skilled textile workers in early 19th century England. They weren't opposed to technology for it's own sake but rather that some factory owners used the machinery to get around standard labor practices such as apprenticeships and also produced low quality goods. See this article on Smithsonian Magazine's website if you're interested in the story. I'm not opposed to technology either. Heavens, without computers and the internet, we wouldn't have Ravelry. I just want technology to work!

Please leave your comments below!

Chain Link 2018 - Portland!

It's been 2 weeks, and I've finally recovered from this year's Chain Link Conference, the annual conference of the Crochet Guild of America. I will have to make a note NOT to take a cold to Chain Link next year and certainly not to bring it home with me as well. I was fortunate that the conference was in Portland, OR only an hour's drive from my home. 

Classes

One of the best things about Chain Link is the classes. There are always more interesting classes than I can take, and they're all crochet or crochet related! No pouring through the listings for the one crochet class among all the knitting classes like at most fiber related shows. 

Modern Irish Crochet

This year I was determined to get into Myra Wood's Modern Irish Crochet classes. Last year they filled up before I registered. I jumped right on it this year and got in. Modern Irish Crochet is an updated version of the original Irish crochet that was a cottage industry in Ireland beginning during the 19th century potato famine. Myra gave a brief history of Irish crochet and how some Russian ladies learned it and gave it a modern spin after the Soviet Union fell. The first class was all about making the beautiful and colorful motifs used in this technique.  

Myra had some vintage Irish crochet pieces from her family. These are made with impossibly fine thread, and are just gorgeous.

In the first class, we learned how to make motifs working from Russian stitch diagrams. These are similar to American stitch diagrams but have a few different symbols. It didn't take too long to catch on. We used size 10 thread or larger yarn in a variety of colors. Color is one of the differences between original and modern Irish crochet. Here are some of Myra's motifs.

You'll notice the motifs in the photo above are joined with a mesh. That was the subject of the second class. Looks simple, right? Think again. Since the motifs are pinned to a styrofoam board while you join them, it's not possible to manipulate your hook and do yarn overs the usual way. The technique is quite awkward at first, and it will take me a bit of practice to become proficient. Here's Myra demonstrating.

And here's my practice piece with the mesh just started. 

Mine isn't nearly as nice as Myra's work above, but I intend to keep practicing because the goal is to make a garment like this lovely top.

To accomplish that, in the third class we learned to make a muslin template to our exact measurements. The template can then be used to make an Irish crochet garment or really any sort of crocheted garment. If this sounds like something you'd like to try Myra's Craftsy class is on sale. Or check out the other classes on her website.

Self-Healing Stitches

The other class I took was Self-Healing Stitches with Vashti Braha. Vashti is always coming up with a new and innovative crochet technique. One day she decided to see what happened if she cut (steeked) armholes in a piece of crochet. She found out that you can do that with some stitches and not have the whole thing fall apart. This class was on the last afternoon of the conference, and I think we were all a bit zoned, but we bravely forged ahead and took scissors to our crocheted swatches.

Some stitches work better than others. Here are my swatches. Some have been tidied up a bit to stop stitches that weren't completely self-healing from running away. The two-toned Catherine's wheel actually made a nice hexagonal hole that I really liked with only a bit of capturing loose stitches. 

Cutting the right stitch pattern is an easy way to make a buttonhole, armhole or neckline.

Check out two of Vashti's patterns that use this technique - the Smokestack Convertible Vest and the Mesmer Veils Set. Her patterns are great because they always teach you something usually with a photo tutorial.

Design Competition

One of the main events of Chain Link is the design competition. Anyone can enter, and there are a variety of categories from fashion to artistic expression. Here are a few photos of some of the entries. 

Fun cowl with innovative cables by my friend Sue Perez. Check out her blog for interesting crochet and a lovely photos of her bike rides in rural Wisconsin. Find her other designs on Ravelry. 

A colorful wrap from Kristin Lynn who I'm also honored to call a friend. When you go to Chain Link, you get to meet all the fun people! Kristin's other designs are also on Ravelry.

I love this honeycomb pillow complete with bees. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the designer because this year the names weren't on the labels. That was a bit disappointing.

Great colors and motifs in this afghan.

Two gorgeous doilies.

Pretty lace top.

More gorgeous lace. This is by the queen of thread work - Kathryn White. Find her patterns on her website and Ravelry.

I'd love to make this interesting cardigan.

For a slide show of the winning designs go to the CGOA website.

Banquet

The banquet is the last event at the conference. It includes a fashion show. This year the induction of the newest member of the Crochet Hall of Fame Pauline Turner was also at the banquet. Pauline gave a very interesting and funny talk and slide show. She was instrumental in popularizing crochet in Britain in the 70s. Here's an interview with her on the Underground Crafter blog. She's written a number of books, and some of her designs can be found on Ravelry. 

Unfortunately, my seating location wasn't good for photography so I don't have a photo of Pauline or any of the fashion show which is the other highlight of the banquet. Find that on the the CGOA page on Facebook.

Here's one of the centerpieces my guild chapter, Always in Stitches made for the banquet. Since Portland is the Rose City, we made roses. Lots and lots of roses!

Outside the banquet room there was a lovely flower arrangement complete with balls of yarn and swatches. These are real flowers not crochet, but look closely for the balls of yarn and swatches.

Marketplace

This year's marketplace was small, but there were some high quality vendors. I found no shortage of things to buy. One thing I really appreciated is that almost all the yarn vendors had crocheted samples displayed. Hallelujah! Here are a few of the vendors.

Renegade Yarn had a great selection of yarn.

They also had unique items such as bangles made from Tunisian hooks and fun crochet and yarn themed mugs. 

I am not supposed to buy any mugs since we have a cupboard full of them, but I couldn't resist this one. If you mind a bit of profanity, skip the next photo. 

Inner Yarn Zen teamed up with designer Karen Whooley to celebrate Karen's 20th anniversary as a designer. 

Karen designed a cowl/shawl combination called Into the Deep using a gradient dyed by Inner Yarn Zen. In addition to selling the kits at the conference, they're also available on Karen's website. 

 

Next down the row was Oink Pigments. I love how she displays her yarn in vintage suitcases.

She also was selling earrings that are little skeins of yarn. I was only able to resist these only because a kind friend bought me a pair a while back. (Thanks, Julie!)

Newton's Yarn Country is a regular at Chain Link. Love their mile long table of color.

For people who needed to start crocheting with their newly purchased yarn right away, there was a yarn winding station nearby. You might recognize the lovely and talented Vashti Braha from one of the photos above.

Friends

The best part of every conference is meeting up with fiber friends.

If you can ever manage to get to Chain Link, do it! It's the best show for crocheters. Next year it's in Manchester, NH on July 10-13 and will be celebrating CGOA's 25th anniversary.

Now, I need to practice the skills I learned in my classes before I forget how.