Third Coast Festival, plus an upcoming trip...!

For those of you who haven't seen it yet:   The list of workshops for the wondrous Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival is now 'up' on our company website.  Have a look!  It's http://www.artisanknitworks.com/. We will be opening up registration, with fuller detail as to what the workshops entail and what homework (if any) you'll have to do, within two weeks.  All depends on how much work poor Larry (who is pretty much doing all of this by himself, at least on the computer end of things) can squeeze in over the next ten days or so. 

But get a load of this:   Somebody should remind me that I'm 67 years old, no longer a spring chicken, and so on.  I have decided to go to the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Festival again at Grayslake, Illinois, on the Thursday night of the weekend of June 21-23 -- This festival is near Chicago -- maybe 5 hours from Detroit if you stop for some kind of break -- in my trusty Enterprise rental.  Hope it's a Ford this time and NOT a GM product, which for some reason aren't as comfortable or as well designed.  Or so I think.  I need to get to this festival in particular because I want to have a LONG conversation with the people from the Windy City Knitting Guild, who always attend the Midwest Festival with their wonderful mannequin.

What mannequin?  Well.  Years ago, I found Polly Esther Cotton at the Midwest Festival.  She was an amazing creation -- a focal point for conversation, for gathering, for remembering that clothing used to be made entirely by hand.  Women and men would gather around her and, using the provided yarn, needles, and hooks, add to her raiment.  I think I've talked about her before on this blog.  I have added many bits to her garb over the years.  I talked a couple of times to the guild people about creating a kid sister for the mannequin -- never did it.  Here's Polly:

Now, I CAN do (and have done) exactly that.  We now have unpacked and assembled Rita Merino, who stands VERY tall in the studio, dressed in a Michigan Fiber Festival T-shirt and donated skirt.  Soon, she will wear a bodice that I'm going to crochet or knit for her with cap sleeves.  We'll put her in nice black tights, add the gorgeous hand-crafted socks that my old friend Elaine Clark is making out of scraps, and surorund her with bushel baskets full of yarn, tools, etc.   What I need to do at Chicago is to strike up a conversation (a) about whether they want to bring their NEW mannequin to Detroit to keep company with Rita during OUR festival, and (b) whether we can create some kind of joint narrative about the two mannequins, why we have them, what they do for the world. 

Then I'm going to come back home and head out again for Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday night.  The annual TNNA convention is the same weekend, and I want to attend for the Sunday marketplace events.  This year, I won't be able to take a class -- I really DO want to go to Grayslake for at least a day.  But it will be good to talk with friends and prospective (or actual) vendors in the market for some hours.

WHEW.  Makes me tired just to think about it.

More soon.

svb

Workshops -- Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival

Update:   The listing (without descriptions) of 3rd Coast workshops is now available at our website, http://www.artisanknitworks.com/.  I find it just plain gorgeous - hope you do, too.  It will take us a couple of weeks to get the registration on line -- but we'll do it.  Stay tuned.     svb 

...the long-promised images from Wooster, Ohio!

You might recall that, in a fit of energy, I promised you some images from our trip to the Great Lakes Sheep, Wool and Fiber Festival in Wooster, Ohio -- five days ago or so.  Sigh.  I'm getting old, and maybe I'm getting cranky.  I'm really annoyed at myself.

We drove off in our (not very nice) Chevrolet HHR (sorry, Lois, but I really didn't like driving it!!!), the title to which belongs to Enterprise Rentals, and meandered through maybe a dozen absolutely delightful Ohio towns.....before which, of course, you have to get to Toledo, along the perpetually-under-construction Interstate 75.  They will never finish.  It's some kind of out-migration scheme (keep 'em at home by shutting all the roads down for 9 months of the year). 

Some of those wonderful rural towns are full of Mennonite and Amish peoples.  You can tell by the absence of automobiles in some farmyards, the presence of the occasional carriage, and the well-tended appearance of a small farm -- not to mention the taller-than-usual garage or shed doors.  Gorgeous horses.  Healthy people.  I wish I knew more about Mennonite dietary habits, because they are among the healthiest and longest-lived of all Americans, and it has to do with physical as well as spiritual well-being.

And of course there is a certain amount of sadness in some of those towns.  In the otherwise charming Lodi, Ohio, we found echoes of the mid-19th century, when towns like this flourished, and fairly burst at the seams with migrants from New York and Pennsylvania.  Look carefully at the top of this very old building's cornice.  It's not going to last much longer.  The tin work is going, and the paint needs renewal badly.   And all of it takes money -- I wonder how much damage this recession will do in that regard, pushing homes and buildings and farms that are on the brink of difficulty completely over the edge:

and there were the usual, wonderful collectible shops -- usually found dead center on the main streets of towns like Lodi, Ohio.  We found some more buttons, of course, in this one:

.....here is what you should NOT do to old dishes (click on this one -- you won't believe it):

But then, of course, there was the festival itself.  We got to talk to a lot of old friends, about the Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival upcoming and lots more.  Bought SEVENTY-FOUR SKEINS of undyed wool-alpaca, made-in-Ohio yarn, very soft and lofty, from an Ohio mill, which I've now taken to the studio for sale, some of which I'll try to kettle dye.  Here are some of the outside vendors at the Great Lakes festival:

And HERE (blare of trumpets) is either the world's largest bread bowl or Paul Bunyan's cradle:

FINALLY:  This is the best reason of all to attend the Great Lakes festival -- setting aside the high-quality vendors (about 80 in all) and cool collectible shops.   In the center of Wooster is TULIPAN, maybe THE best Hungarian bakery and espresso shop in the entire midwest.  Maybe in the world.  Well, there are such things in Hungary, I imagine, so I'd better not overdo it.  We came at closing and were so crestfallen that the two lovely young women stayed open to make us some gorgeous coffee, fruit, and a piece (for Larry) of amazing almond torte.  We went away happy.  LOOK AT THIS.

More later.  Need to go knit awhile.  The computer has completely worn me out today.

svb

Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival Update

Everyone, a brief note:   Today, we updated the Third Coast link at http://www.artisanknitworks.com/ to include the summary list of the THIRTY-TWO fabulous fiber-arts workshops that will be offered at the event on September 21-22.  So have a look.  I think you'll be thrilled.  We will open up registration as soon as Larry figures out how to manage all of the technical wizardry required to achieve on-line registration!!!!  

And speaking of wizardry:  Look at this amazing photograph that Larry took somewhere in one of the small towns we visited recently in Ohio.   He thinks (he's right) that the best photographs are of PARTS of things, and this one makes the point.  Look at the abstract-art message that this thing conveys.  Click on it.    svb

 

Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival, and Wooster....

Larry and I just returned from a really beautiful driving day -- through Ohio farm country to Wooster, Ohio, and the annual Great Lakes Sheep and Wool and Fiber Festival.  More on that experience in another post, when I can show you some pictures.  Suffice it to say that I bought 74 skeins of wool-alpaca made-in-Ohio natural yarn, to be dyed by ME.  Now THAT is either courage or complete idiocy.

The topic that concerns me right now is the Third Coast Festival.  I learned from a couple of people that there is a lot of at least mild confusion out there.  Larry will be sending out letters with more information; the McGregor Conference Center, for instance, is an URBAN convention center.  It has electricity (some have not been certain it did), it has WiFi, it has gorgeous lighting, it is NOT like a fairground.  You do NOT have to leave two hours after the event ends.  How these things get started I just can't imagine.  But KNOW that you will get something from Larry very soon.  We perhaps have relied too much on photos of the Center, which is very beautiful -- but perhaps the fact that it's smack in the middle of a lovely college campus has not come through clearly.

For those of you who have NO IDEA what I'm talking about:  Have a look at the link on our website (http://www.artisanknitworks.com/) or just read some of the entries on this blog, beginning in early May! 

Cheers.  Will write about the Great Lakes festival after a night's sleep!!!

svb

LOOKING FOR A MEMORIAL DAY ACTIVITY?

Here is what you do:   Go to a public park, sit on a park bench in plain view of everybody, and do this:

I'll be back with lots and lots of photographs from Wooster, Ohio, and the Great Lakes Fiber Festival, probably by Monday.  And, yes, that's me -- do NOT compare with the photograph in the blog's heading.  That was only five years ago!   How the hands age as the years advance.  It's appalling.

svb

THIRD COAST YARN BOMBING!!!

Okay, guys.   Spread the word.  I now have permission to undertake a YARN-BOMBING BLITZ on the Wayne State campus maybe two weeks before the Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival occurs (the festival is September 21-22).  We will announce some sessions at our shop -- so look for announcements here and in the newsletter and on Ravelry.  You can bring yarn you no longer want, big needles or hooks, and join us in making colorful strips.  You can make 'em at home or in coffee shops.  You can do whatever you want -- but if you are making them in a group or something, do tell us so we can have a rough idea how many more we need to make.  When the time comes, we will announce a MEETING TIME and descend en masse on the campus, probably on a Sunday, when parking is the most ample.  Each one will have a little sign that says "YARN-BOMBING by knitters and crocheters, Third Coast Fiber Arts Festival, September 21-22, McGregor Conference Center."  Or some such thing.   I also have in mind inviting poor people to take strip-shaped objects down AFTERWARD and keep them for winter scarves.   So we will sew them on loosely. 

But we can make all kinds of shapes, so long as we stay away from City-owned stuff (like parking meters).  Here is a link to a Time magazine article.  If you want, go down to campus and have a look at the McGregor Center area, which is just a few feet off Cass near Kirby, roughly across from the law school's main entrance, or the many adjacent malls, for that matter.  We could make many shapes.  It's important only to remember that we can do no damage.   For amazing examples, look at   www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2077071,00.html

Stay tuned!

svb