Asheville's Wonders

Well, Larry and I drove all the way to Asheville, NC, this past weekend -- It's a very long haul, but punctuated (as usual) with stops at various antique malls and shops along the way -- beside the freeways, but also in small towns, where the real treasures can be found.  We returned, to give an example, to the marvelous shop in Candler, NC, where we found yet more entire cards of stunning vintage buttons at fabulous prices -- just as before.  In Candler, there's a button collector I'd like to meet in person!  I left before the haggling over prices started.  Larry is MUCH better at it than I am. 

It's impossible to photograph the mountainous scenery, the advancing autumnal colors -- those warm sepia and orange and reddish and chartreuse tones (yes, chartreuse -- as green yellows, there is indeed quite a lot of it which , in combination with other fall colors, I've tried in vain to capture in free-form knitting.  Something is elusive -- maybe the strokes of charcoal and dark brown, but more likely the very bright values where the sun strikes darker colors, and maybe even the blue tones of the sky).  Here are two poor examples of what we saw:

This time, I bought a motel room at the Asheville end of things from HotWire.  DO NOT USE HOTWIRE.  First:  The so-called bargain price was only 20 dollars less than full price.  Second, and more important:  The godawful room we got at the Ramada Biltmore West was so bad that I considered just leaving, prepaid or not -- Larry complained about the worn-out rugs, the sway-back beds, the general slum tone -- you don't expect to be in a slum for 120 bucks a night.  Surprise surprise:  They moved us to a slighty better room, although the electronic door barely worked (they have some problems with maintenance) and the bathroom sink had a faucet that was about to fall off.  The beds were better, so we stayed.  I'll ignore the time when the electricity went out.  Suffice it to say:  Hotwire probably means (contrary to the ads) that you get rooms nobody else wants unless you complain.  So I'll just do it the usual way from now on.

Asheville's Southeast Wool and Fiber Festival has expanded significantly since I was last there several years ago.  It's now well over a hundred vendors, approaching 200 in fact, some of whom still only show primarily at this fair.  NOT the same cast of characters, in other words, as one finds at, say, NY's lalalalooza festival or Maryland's.  It occupies the HUGE agricultural expo center (really a mammoth, circular indoor arena) and out-buildings in Fletcher, NC, which is an Asheville suburb immediately across the street from the Asheville airport.  When you are expecting to buy yarn, though, it's best to drive -- it's hard to find UPS or FedEx stores on Sunday!   Far better to load up a rental car and avoid trying to explain to airport authorities why your baggage is full of yarn and how an extra bag full of wool (you need to take an empty one along) can weigh as much as lead.

And the real joy, something I've been looking forward to for at least a year, was meeting the brilliant Stacey Budge, the driving force behind UrbanGypZ Yarns.  We got to hug!!!!  She was THE first indie dyer that I put in the shop when we opened.  I learned this weekend that I was also her first wholesale account!   Here she is:

The particularly good part:  It's always best to see yarn before buying it, and even better to see an artisan's full line before deciding what to buy.  So this time, I could SEE everything she makes.  I chose a boatload of her light-weight yarns, including fingering and lace-weight merino wools; but I also picked up some luscious wool-silk for makers of shawls and maybe cowls.  The semi-solids were a surprise:  I associate Stacey with variegations, and they were wonderful, but I LOVED her semis.  So I actually picked up more semi-solid yarns than variegated.  See?  THAT'S why it's important to go to the horse's mouth, so to speak.  No, that's not to call Stacey a horse.  It's a SAYING, dopey reader!

Everywhere, Larry took pictures of yarn and people and oddities.  Some important discoveries:  First, I did not know that Amy of YarnSmith (Ohio) had reorganized her yarn business as Pandora Yarns.  Apparently the wondrous Amy, who is a GREAT handpainter, got very tired of running a mill during a recession; now, she dies in her own studio and is MUCH happier.  I was particularly taken with some buttery lace-weight merino, which I bought too much of, and of course with her sock wools.  Here she is -- and don't miss the small sliver of the parking lot shown behind her.  This is a VERY big exposition:

And then -- TA DA -- an example of WHY I go to the festivals.  I found a replacement for the raku buttons by Tia of Olympia, Washington, who stopped making them.  Two amazing women are making raku buttons and jewelry (!!!!) that is actually more interesting, and just as well crafted, as Tia Matera's work.  We bought up a small supply to show our clients -- but -- blare of trumpets -- they are gong to send a trunk show on or about November 7, so we can select a lot more at our leisure.  It's also important, if we mean to support small producers, to let them try to sell goods at full price at the festivals and make arrangements to buy what's left at prices we can deal with.  So that's what we did with this delightful mother and daughter team (get a load of the chunky bracelets in the photograph, and the picture behind them!):

They aren't afraid of color, but they also seem to understand color.  So the beads, buttons, and jewelry are eye-catching and original without being either gaudy or predictable.

And here's one of the out-buildings (the actual expo building is multi-tier and HUGE):

As to whimsical moments:  Get a load of these, courtesy of the splendid Larry!  More later.  Come into the shop and see what we bought!!!!!!!!!     svb

On to Asheville...

.......And so, this coming Thursday morning, as bright and early as I ever manage (NOT), Larry and I will climb into a rental car and meander south through Ohio and other foreign lands toward Asheville, North Carolina.  Along the way, we will visit wondrous antique shops in search of (what else?) vintage buttons, maybe some delightful old jewelry.  (We all have words we think look funny -- is it jewelery or jewelry?  Here I am, the winner of the 8th-grade Minnesota state spelling contest, unable to spell jewelry/jewelery).  I have made a reservation at a Ramada Inn near the Southeast fiber festival -- actually in Fletcher, NC -- which is immediately across the street from the Asheville airport.  I flew last time.  But then you have the problem of figuring out how to get the TON of yarn you inevitably buy back home (Fed Ex and UPS are remarkably hard to find on Sundays!!!).  So -- this time, a car, with my sidekick Larry.   I'm secretly trying to get him the h___ out of the shop for a few days.  He really needs to get at least within a few yards of a golf course now and again.  I wonder if he realizes quite yet that I am going to put his clubs in the car?  More later when I actually have something to say.

svb

O Loyal Readers....

Dear loyal people, I have been silent because I have exams to grade (ARRRGHHH) and nothing, really, to report beyond the gorgeous fact of sailboat races on Lake St Claire, the ugly fact of virtually no yarn business (the warm weather), and the strange fact that, at this very moment, some idiot is firing off some firecrackers or rockets in my block.  I wonder what on earth is going on?  Do we shoot rockets on Columbus Day???  And in any case, it's tomorrow.  I will write more when I have something to say.  You do NOT want to hear about the schmo-like toy that I'm making from white string (Larry gave me a ball, having no idea that giving me a ball of something knittable or crochetable is like Coke to an addict).  More later.   svb

Change in direction....

Larry and I have decided to forego the local festivals (see previous post!) at West Branch and Romeo in favor of a long, lovely drive to North Carolina in late October to the fabulous Southeast Fiber Festival near Ashville.  We will rent a car and take our time driving, from Thursday mid-day (if I can find a person to guide my Thursday class through a discussion) until late-day Monday.  He loves Asheville; I love the antique shops along the way (think BUTTONS!), and both of us are eager to see what has become of the Asheville show, which is held at a huge agricultural center across the street from the Asheville Regional Airport.  Since I was last there three years ago, it has GROWN.  And I finally get to meet Stacy Budge, the maker of our wonderful UrbanGypZ fingering yarns.  So that's the decision.  I will have much more to say about this in a month.  Meanwhile, fiber aficionados should check out their website (which can also be accessed through the events tab on knittersreview.com).   svb

West Branch Ho....

If it ever stops raining -- and only if it does -- I may head out on Saturday morning for the three little fiber events at Flint (International Alpaca Festival), Romeo (Mt Bruce Station Autumn Festival), and West Branch (Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival).   I'll make report if and when I do!    svb

Tea Party as Old Soviets???

I was hugely amused today, while re-reading Bloomsbury giant Leonard Woolf's little essay Principia Politica, written in the heyday of the anti-Communist witchhunt, to find sentences about the diabolical communists that sound, for all the world, like a critique of the Tea Party.  The 'enemies' list, of course has changed.  But I'm taken with Woolf's clear sense of the ideological importance of enemies' lists and the whipping of communities into a froth of hatred.  It's pretty ironic actually that Obama is being tarred with the broad brush of Socialism!!!!!  Makes me smile, though darkly.    Here's a sample. 

"The persistent appeal to communal hatred is one of the most remarkable features in Russian communism.  We have already noticed it in the use of ideology by Soviet rulers.  The theme is always an attack upon guilty men or guilty classes -- capitalists, kulaks, imperialists, war-mongers, Trotskyists, or some other species of deviationist.  The Russian people are subjected to an uninterrupted stream of what is now called propaganda.  It is an unending stream of incitement to the hatred of wicked people who are represented as the unscrupulous enemies of Russia and of the masses.  It is these capitalists or kulaks, imperialists or Americans, and their dupes and hirelings, who deliberately prevent the workers of Russia and of the world from attaining the Marxist or communist millenium.  Therefore the first duty of the good communist is to hate them and the second to liquidate them."

svb

Young's Jersey Dairy and YARN? A Travelogue....Part Two

....and, as promised below, here are the woodworkers' pictures, surrounded by the beautiful things they have crafted.

....and here is a spinner named Michelle who was simply SPINNING, smiling as if she had never been happier in her life, just to make everyone else smile.

I loaded up on some gorgeous felted bags (ready-made in my view for those who use circular knitting needles and other rounded tools) and smaller tool kits from an Ohio woman who also makes darling necklaces with pictures -- with slogans like "I love to hook" (!!!).  I bought at least a dozen.

And then I left.  This was a day trip.  Someday, it will come over me that women in their late 60s aren't supposed to drive 7 hours in one day.  But, until then, I'll continue to do it.  And of course, on the way out, I took another final, long glance at the huge tents -- and captured another scene that will never be found on the streets of Detroit.  Here I am, taking the picture of some parents taking pictures of children on a wondrous tractor:

Happy Knit and Crochet!!!   And thanks to Ohio for having such lovely weather today.   svb