People making things

First off: my friend was back in church today! When the minister announced she was, everyone clapped. If she didn't realize how much we all love her before, she knows now. (She looked a lot, lot better. Part of that may have been make up but she did look a bit pale to me when I saw her on Monday). Hopefully she will continue to progress; I am sure getting out of the house helped.

Yesterday I went to BPAFF, also known as the Blackland Prairie Artisan and Fiber Fair. (Blackland prairie is the local term for the type of tallgrass prairie we have around here).

It was fascinating, and fun, and I learned all kinds of stuff. I got to see a demonstration on indigo dying. The actual color-development process is an oxidation reaction - the item comes out of the dyepot sort of a teal green and as oxygen in the air reacts with the dye, it turns the characteristic denim-blue shade. (Also, the dyepot stinks. I'm guessing it has to be kept anaerobic in order to keep the dye working, and most stuff that's been anaerobic, at least if it's not sterile and bacteria-free, stinks to high heaven.)

I also got to speak with a number of spinners working on wheels. (Interestingly, the consensus is, learning wheel spinning isn't THAT hard, and most of them said they disliked drop spindling - the only kind I've ever tried - because it's extremely slow. They also all praised how relaxing and meditative spinning was. Hm. I don't suppose I could get my doctor to write me a prescription for a wheel and lessons, as an anti-hypertensive, stress-reduction measure? (Years and years go, when we were living in a house with no air conditioning, my dad got a prescription for, and therefore was able to spend his medical flex-account dollars on, a window air conditioner to ease his migraines.)

I also found, to my utter astonishment, that there is a wool and alpaca (and other fibers, but not rabbit - allergies) processor in my town. IN. MY. TOWN. The woman said they didn't have a retail store, they just sold online, because it was a small operation and they needed to be able to work without people coming in on a regular basis, but that a person could call ahead and come in by appointment. AND that she was thinking some day in the future of offering spinning lessons. She told me where they were located....it is a place I drive by on a semi-regular basis and I never realized that big metal shop building housed a company making drafted batts for spinners. Amazing.

And I saw someone throw a pot on a wheel - I used to do a bit of that in high school art and I can appreciate the experience required to do it well. (I did it badly, but with enthusiasm, and I suppose if I had had time to work at it more, I could have gotten better).

And I saw a tri-loom and kind of want one now - this is a big triangle made of small boards (1x2s, maybe? And finished, so they are smooth) with precisely spaced nails and you can weave triangular shawls on it. The nifty thing is you are doing warp and weft simultaneously - one of the challenging things about a traditional loom is the set up time spent warping it. Yes, you can pretty much make only one thing (a big triangle) on a tri-loom, but the finished shawls look nice and it looks fun to do. 

The best demonstration though was the herding dogs. There's a whole Red River herding-dog association here that does  dog trials and things. So they had the border collies out herding sheep (this was in a huge livestock pavilion with bleachers so you could sit and watch). They showed the differences between inexperienced and experienced dogs.

And then they herded ducks. Yes, ducks. According to the guy running the show, many of the berry producers now use ducks to control bugs in their fields (I'm frankly surprised the ducks don't eat the berries... and if it weren't the head of the organization telling us that I'd suspect he was pulling our legs). But anyway, to get the ducks back to whereever the ducks have to go at the end of the day, they use herding dogs. Herding ducks is hard because they are a lot flightier (heh, I see what I did there) than sheep are, and they're more prone to wander away from the group. So the dog is like, "See that pen over there? I'm a'gonna put you in it." and the ducks are like "nope nope nope nope" but somehow the dog manages to do it. It's both funny and amazing to watch. (The ducks do have slightly clipped wings so there's no chance of one taking a runner, er, flier.)

And there were vendors. Vendors with pottery. Vendors with handmade jewelry. Venders with woven items. Vendors with batts or raw fleece (or alpaca "locks" - there was one vendor who had them sorted based on which alpaca they came from, and it had the name of the alpaca on the box). And vendors with yarn.

Including bison yarn.

Which I had to get some of.



This is for a pair of fingerless mitts. Apparently the producer has free patterns up on their webpage (I haven't looked yet but he told me the name of a pattern that would work with this yarn). I admit, I had committed emotionally to the purchase before asking the price (a bonehead move on my part), so it's way way way more than I normally spend on one skein of yarn. But you know? I don't really care. It's bison yarn. I bought it from the guy who owns the bison and who takes part in shearing them. I might never have that chance again. (Though if I go next year - and believe me, unless I am threatened with loss-of-tenure for failing to attend some silly Saturday thing on campus, I WILL be going next year - I probably would again).

And anyway: bison wool mitts. Bison wool mitts. I find that idea so wonderful that I don't mind the price of the yarn.

I also bought some other yarn, even after telling myself, "You've spent your entire yarn budget on that bison yarn):



A Dallas-area dyer called Alisha Goes Around had a giant table of yarns. I am a sucker for color and so seeing the table of yarn made me really want some. The one I wound up (the skein kind of fell out of its neat folds so I didn't want it to tangle) was the last of that batch of sockyarn dyed that color (there isn't a colorway name on the label but it's definitely a turquoise). The other one is called Diadem and while I am normally not an "orange" person - this is a reddish goldish orange and it's just so pretty. I think both of these will be socks and if I can find the copy of my booklet with the "Octarine Socks" pattern in it, I think that's going to be what I do with the turquoise yarn.

The fiber festival (well, it was more than just that, seeing as there were potters and dyers and herding dogs there) was wonderful. I admit, walking around and seeing all these people more or less in my part of the world (and some very much in my part of the world, like Ozark Fiber Mill) made me feel a bit like Harry Potter when he first goes into Diagon Alley....I can't believe there are all these other people out there like me, I didn't think ANYONE in this area was into this, it's so hard to find people with these kinds of interests. (And it makes me wish there was something like a Diagon Alley for handcrafters/artisans that you could go to any time). One requirement of the show was that everything for sale was made by the shop owner or otherwise made locally - which avoids some of the slightly junky flea-market feeling of some "art fairs" I've been to, where there are people with cheap made-in-China stuff, which then makes you doubt the provenance of everything else on sale.