What a joy it is to see how much support is developing for the First Annual Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival!!! If you haven't heard yet: On September 21-22 upcoming, knitters and crocheters and weavers and spinners, and so on, will converge on the dazzlingly beautiful McGregor Memorial Conference Center in midtown Detroit, in the middle of the Wayne State University campus (where I teach). This is an amazing facility -- a Yamisaki building, one of several on campus, made of white marble, glass, and terrazzo. There is a rock garden. There is abundant light, a sense of joy. So far, we have signed on such gifted teachers as Sally Melville, Candace Eisner-Strick, Judy Pascale, Sarah Peasley, Sheryl Thies, and maybe maybe maybe Tracey, the new owner of Interlacement Yarns (a dyeing class, or so she suggested this weekend) -- plus a bunch of other people who haven't published books yet but whose fame is building (among them, Amy and Greg from Jehoveh Jireh Farm in Paw Paw, Michigan; Detroit's own Sybil Williams; Dana, the wonderful designer who used to work with Rose Perkins at Indigo Rose; Mollie Fletcher of CCS with card weaving; our own Ellen Taylor and Lois Thieme with spindle spinning; and so on). Sybil is going to do an ongoing demo in the atrium with her big loom, making a scarf from Artisan Knitworks' yarns, which we will raffle off. Sally will provide an astonishing multi-media presentation during the Friday night dinner -- entitled "Why We Do What We Do." Candace will preside over an utterly hilarious slide show about what life is really like for an independent knitwear designer. {May 18: Interlacements signed up but suddenly has a "huge conflict," as Tracey put it, so has had to pull out. WAY too bad!!! Larry goes to Greenville, MI, tomorrow to leaflet the entire Michigan Fiber Fiesta!!!}.
Isn't this just incredible?
If you want more information, go to http://www.artisanknitworks.com/, where you'll find a link, Google for Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival, or go to the Events tab at KnittersReview.com. If all else fails, just call Larry Hart at 586-871-2884.
The marketplace is the real wonder -- almost twenty vendors now!!!! And quality stuff, I might add. One from Texas, one from Oregon, most from Michigan and adjacent states, a couple from Detroit. I am positively stunned by the reception. UP WITH DETROIT!
Now I have to get the city council to sign a resolution declaring Saturday, September 22, Knit-Crochet-Spin Day Detroit. I've written it -- just need to figure out who to send it to so the council actually sees it. I want to encourage all of Detroit to knit, crochet, spin in public for the whole weekend. The Atlanta Knitting Guild persuaded the Governor of Georgia to declare the Saturday of Stitches South a special day -- called Knitting and Crochet Day Atlanta. So why not Detroit? If anyone knows a sure-fire avenue to the city council with my resolution, let me know. I mean it. There is no point in doing this halfway.
svb
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