The Plague And A Fiber Event

Our house has been hit by some horrible plague! This likely is influenza and last week we began falling one by one. Only Hubby escaped with minor damages. Super high fevers, chills, aching, cough/allergy type symptoms, no appetite whatsoever and everything just hurts. Saturday it hurt to open my eye lids. Not kidding! I can't remember a virus that was so bad. The disappointing thing is that we won't be better in time for our homeschool Valentine's Day party. This makes me sad because the kids are making Valentine's and taking them to the memory care respite clients at our church. I think it is such a neat idea and it is good for young children to interact with the elderly. It was a really important part of my growing up and something my children have not experienced. Hopefully there will be some more opportunities as we have several home school families in our church, so we will probably have future events. For now it's disappointing! :o(

Yesterday I was bad. I was so disappointed Saturday that I could not go to the annual spinning and weaving guild show. I had really been looking forward to it. Have I mentioned that I am stubborn? Yesterday I medicated myself and went. I felt almost human and I made as little contact with other humans as possible, not wanting to spread the plague. Honestly, the fresh air felt really great. It was a short trip and I paid for it later, but it was nice to get to see a few things. In case you are wondering, this is a very small show and was not very busy on the second day, otherwise I would not have gone. Disappointing for me, but good for the pocket book was that most of the rovings and yarns that were really awesome were gone. But I did buy two handwoven dish towels that I will have to photograph later. They will be for my bread baking (when I cover the dough to rise). Below are pictures of what else I saw:

Sacramento is supposedly the Camellia Capitol of the World. There certainly are a lot here and they are very pretty. These are just a few different ones. You can see the weather was nice - close to 70*!

This lovely lady was a greeter. I don't have permission to show her identity, so that is why she is missing a head. Look at her lovely modular knit vest! She was making sleeves for another sweater as she greeted visitors.

Here is what the sweater looks like.

I loved the tulips and pansies together. There didn't seem to be as much work displayed this year but what was there was really nice.

I especially liked the shawl on the right. Hand spun and hand woven.

Navajo weaving and another shawl.

This was my favorite! Isn't this gorgeous?! The front was a woven piece and knitting was sewn to the side and a ribbing was picked up and knit.

This is a close up for Kimberly because she sews and doesn't interesting things with all her weaving. The purple heather handspun was so gorgeous too. I would have loved a whole sweater just from that!

There is a theme each year and this year it was something like beauty from nature. This is from a King Palm and the fronds are woven back onto itself. It reminded me of seaweed I have found dried on the beach.

There was a lot of basket weaving this time of various kinds.

I saw a couple people spinning on Lendrums (which I have) this time. They seem to be getting more popular. The gal was spinning while I took this picture. These yarns coordinate with another she was spinning and she said they will probably go into a woven blanket.

These are two blankets the same spinner has woven. Honestly, I think it takes as much talent for someone to design beautiful with neutrals as it does colors. I think she has a great sense of balance in her designs.

This was not labeled as such but I believe this is from the Dale Ingeborg pattern or a modifcation of it. It is all from hand spun Corriedale, Romney and Merino. I love this design and have thought about altering it for myself some day.

This sweater was so beautiful. Simple, yet elegant. I love how the knitter/designer took the lace panels and staggered the height. It really adds to the overall design. The same person spun, designed and knit this garment.

This is made from hand spun Shetland yarn.

And there were even a few pieces of lace knitting there.

This interesting sweater was knit by the same lady whose face was cut off in the above picture.

Part of the small sales area.

Especially after so much rain lately, I enjoyed seeing the sunlight come through on these yarns.

There were many handwovens to purchase if you had the $$$. This was a table runner and napkins.

But if I were a weaver, I would LOVE to learn how to do Tartans.

Another one of those shawls. It is almost like a modified ruana. They were labeled as V Shawls.

And I leave you with these beautiful woven palm stars. Now it's back to fighting off the plague! Please pray we will all improve quickly. Thank you.