Wow what a month it’s been. I feel like I’ve been working and playing non-stop. It’s been very busy at work and I had to get too much done before we went to Maui for a week to visit relatives, which amounted to several 60 hour work weeks – not fun. But once there, we had a wonderful time whale watching, snorkeling and enjoying my brother in law’s amazing sourdough bread every night.
The weekend we got back, I went to the Madrona Fiber Arts festival (more on that below) and then promptly came down with the cold from hell. It could not have been better timed as I had to give a presentation at the Society for Ecological Restoration conference the next day and I had no voice and was totally congested. Somehow I pulled it off, but missed the rest of the conference because I was too ill to go. I’m now recovering with gallons of tea and three days at home. Just another month around here…
In any case, I want to talk a bit about Madrona – my favorite fiber event of the year. This year I carpooled down with my friend Frances of FCF Creations. Frances is an incredibly creative and lovely person. We met a couple years ago at the Redmond Farmer’s Market, which I visit religiously in the summer. She sells beautiful felted purses made out of old sweaters and there was one in particular I just had to have (which is saying a lot because I’m not a purse person at all). Over the next year we became friends and I was delighted that she wanted to share a room at Madrona with me. We went up on Saturday afternoon to check out the marketplace, which is always an overwhelming experience. I am very proud of my self control because I only purchased one pound of raw Dorset cross fleece to try out.
On Sunday I took an all day class with Charlene Schurch focusing on knitting patterns of the Komi peoples, who traditionally lived in western Russia. Charlene did a lot of research in re-descovering and documenting the beautiful geometric patterns of the Komi people and we got a handout showing many of these designs. The designs look similar to fair isle patterns and also show some Nordic influences. We also started knitting a small hat based on these designs. I had grabbed a bunch of yarn colors to bring to class, one of which was a skein of a bright green yarn I spun a while ago but haven’t done anything with. I thought it would look good with a dark green for a contrasting color and then I wanted to add a brighter color. The bright color I had on hand was orange. I auditioned it for a bit in the hat and then decided that a plum color would look better so I swapped it out. Here are some photos of the original hat with the orange and the new hat with the purple. I think it’s going to turn out very cute and it’s almost done!
Komi design hat with orange motif
Komi design hat with purple motif
On a totally unrelated note, I wanted to post some photos of wolf slippers that Frances made from my pattern. She helped me to test knit it a few months ago and took some photos recently for Ravelry. They are super cute and she was wearing them at Madrona so I got to see them in person. One thing that I noticed right away is that the wolf face on her slippers is facing in the opposite direction than the one in my pattern and it looks really great. I love that interpretation of it and might include it in my pattern. Here are a couple photos of her slippers and one of mine to compare on the bottom. It’s very interesting that I always think of the front of the face being on the toes, but of course it makes total sense to have it reversed so it’s right side up when you look down on it. What a revelation!
Frances wolf slippers
Frances wolf slippers
My wolf slippers
