After spending four days in Poughkeepsie, New York, I flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota to stay with a longtime friend and former roommate for five days (October 20-24). Jerry was the best host and tour guide I could have asked for, and he took me to the Textile Center, which is a national center for fiber art. Even though it was a rainy day, I was in heaven! We parked in the back, and I fell in love with this Textile Mobile before I even got inside the center. Apparently, they take this out to schools and the like.

Unfortunately, the Joan Mondale Gallery was empty, as one show had just been taken down, and the annual holiday exhibit wasn't up yet. When I explained that I came all the way from California to see the center, I was allowed into the closed library and the dye lab. They have a large office for a Minnesota quilting group, and another huge room full of looms for the weavers. Of course I loved the gift shop, too....which has beautiful handcrafted items from all over the country. You must be juried in as an artist to be able to sell there. I bought a spiralbound self-published book called "Altered Images: A Handbook for Fiber Artists" by Donna Kallner. Oh, how I wished that I could whisk the Textile Center to southern California! They have classes and workshops in all manner of techniques, and it's just such an inspiring place. I highly recommend it to any fiber fanatics who visit Minneapolis, and if you can't go, their website is worth checking out. (Click on the photos to make them larger if you wish to see more detail.)

The weather was cool and brisk and the fall leaves were bright and colorful when I attended the 36th Annual New York State Sheep and Wool Festival at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, New York, on Saturday, October 18. The vast parking lot filled up quickly, and I was amazed at the number of people who swarmed the fairgrounds. Now when the Ventura County Fairgrounds has an event, nothing fills the entire grounds except for the annual county fair. This is an event for fiber people: spinners, weavers, dyers, knitters, and crocheters. Everyone I met was so kind and friendly, I felt right at home.

The booklet I received when I entered the festival listed many events scheduled for the day, featuring things like llama and alpaca fiber demonstrations, a wool garment fashion show, angora goat shows, spinning demonstrations, a chop stick knitting contest, and so on. One whole building just had activities for kids and their families. And the vendors! Oh my, there were hundreds of them....and me, with little suitcase room. I did buy a pattern and a small cone of a shiny long staple ecru cotton. I wandered all over the fairgrounds several times, also taking in the Antique Museum Village displays. I just had to take a photo of this gorgeous freeform crochet and knit combination coat that was hanging in one of the larger indoor booths. After the show ended, I drove about five miles down the road to the big Ravelry party, which was attended by over 600 Ravelry members. I was early enough to score a muslin drawstring goody bag, which had a skein of wool yarn, some Ravelry buttons, and other small items. I met up with some of my friends from my Ravelry group Vintage Bitches, and we all had a great time. When I had left southern California, the temperatures had been in the 80s and 90s, so I truly enjoyed the crisp autumn weather in upstate New York.

Honestly, I never intended to take a hiatus from blogging. It just sort of....happened. Truth be told, I did not forsee getting sucked into the political vortex as heavily and addictively as I did. What a ride that was! So now I'm glad all of that nail-biting tension and excitement is over with, but unfortunately the real challenges are just beginning.

My birthday was on Saturday, which means this blog is now three years old. I kept feeling guilty about not blogging, but then I realized that every once in awhile it's good to take some time off. I'm feeling re-energized now, and I'm adapting to the longer, darker nights. My daughter Chelsea got me the book featured here for my birthday, which is a very nice addition to my always-growing home library.

I made two bags (from the Scrappysak pattern) somewhat recently: one for me, and one for a friend (whom I've been promising something made with my own two hands for a long time now, because she has been very generous to me). I like my bag, she tells me that her bag is perfect for her, so everyone is happy. (The first bag is mine, the second is Susan's.) I had several fiber and textile excursions on my recent trip to New York and Minneapolis, so those stories and photos will be next. And soon. Hiatus is over!

Right now I'm in Minneapolis, and I was in New York for the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival at Rhinebeck. I haven't posted in so long because I got totally sucked up into the whole political obsession thing. Between that, work, and travel, blogging took an inadvertent break for a while. I have tons of photos and new things to share, so probably this weekend when I get home, I will start actively blogging again. I usually do not go this long without posting, but I'll be back very soon. This has been a year of many adventures! Stay tuned......

During the past week, a long time acquaintance of mine in the needlearts world dropped off a box for me on my door step. The many needlepoint and counted cross stitch kits and canvasses will be donated to Adult Ed, but I'm keeping these skeins of DMC #5 perle cotton. I love perle cotton. I use it in freestyle embroidery, primitive quilting, and crochet. I believe this is part of a crafter's estate.

I also just finished three knitted dishcloths for a swap on Ravelry. I made them this past weekend while on a trip out of state. I knitted in the airport, on the plane, in the hotel, and at the Red Rocks Ampitheatre outside of Denver. I'll be shipping them to my swap partner in Massachusetts very soon, along with a few other kitchen items (souvenir ceramic trivet from my hometown, a California Sunflowers potholder, a whisk, and a recipe for Fresh Strawberry Pie, as our county is one of the largest strawberry producers in the world). Hope she likes them!

Recently I acquired these 13 hanks of handspun yarns from an eBay auction. Each hank is approximately 120-140 yards, and the fiber content ranges from mohair, alpaca, cotton, silk, wool, linen, angora, rayon, and bamboo. I paid $39.99 plus shipping for all of this fibery goodness. I know that just one of two hanks could go for that much at retail prices in a yarn shop. The only problem was that when they arrived and I opened the box, I could detect a faint cigarette smoke odor to the yarn. So today I placed them outside on a towel, where I lightly sprayed some extra strength Febreze and let them air out. Much better now!

I do have a plan for this yarn, but since I don't have a swift or a ball winder, I'll be slowing winding (and no doubt untangling) these by hand, so it might take a while for that project to get started.

I'm such a rebel, I can hardly follow a pattern anymore. More and more often, I use patterns of all sorts like I use recipes....as a general guideline, or jumping-off place to explore my own possibilities. Luckily, knitwear designer Jane Thornley understands "free range" knitting, and encourages people to experiment and do their own thing with her patterns. I bought this pattern, the Feather & Fan Organic Wrap, at Stitches West earlier this year when I saw it featured in the fashion show. I made mine more like an apron; it has long ties that can be thrown over the shoulder or tied in front. Knit on size 13 needles in the easy feather and fan stitch, it was a quick project. It has languished for several weeks, needing only a single crochet edging. I finally finished it tonight because I want to wear it at an upcoming event. I want to eventually make another one (in different colors) in the more conventional way....the way the pattern is written. Do you like it?

This looks so much better in person! (I took photos both with and without the flash, and these are without.) I just finished (at least I think it's finished) this mixed media work on artist's canvas. I used so many recycled materials in this piece. The canvas was first texturized with unprinted newsprint paper that came as packaging in a mail order box, which was glued down. Then it was coated with gesso and painted in layered succession with purple, dark pink, and black acrylic paint, all blended with matte medium. I painted large bubble wrap with gold paint, and pressed that on. Then I dabbed some purplish-pink glitter paint on with a small natural sea sponge. The center piece was made from an old sheer rayon/acetate shirt purchased from a thrift store. (I used to wear it until it started to shred.) I layered bits and pieces of sheers and chiffons, some from ribbons salvaged from gift wrap, on top of black felt, and topped it all with the shirt scrap into a sandwich. I stipple quilted the layers by machine, then I used a soldering tool and a heat gun to melt and distress the top. I placed three different interesting novelty yarns on diagonally, stitching them down by hand with gold tinsel thread. The gold lace piece is some type of bridal beaded lace scrap I had, which was white, but I painted it with gold metallic textile paint. The three purple pieces were also white, and I painted them with purple metallic fabric paint. The piece in the upper left is a freeform crochet piece I crocheted out of various perle cotton threads and a thin gold metallic cord. I could keep adding, and I was tempted to sew on more beads and/or buttons, but I don't want it to get too busy. I've titled it "Life's Tattered Remnants". I have shows coming up this fall, hence the new work.

This morning I was wondering how the judging went over the weekend in New Hampshire at the Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) Chain Link conference. I entered my freeform crochet capelet "Purple Daze" in their Design Contest, in the Women's Garments category. Soon after I had that thought, I received a call at work from a woman with CGOA. She informed me that my garment won Honorable Mention in the category! I was ecstatic! She told me that there wasn't a monetary award, like first, second, and third place had. I told her I didn't care, because just placing among the professional, published designers was honor and reward enough! So, needless to say, I was doin' the Happy Dance for the rest of the day. Wow.

On Saturday, I drove down to Long Beach for the first International Quilt Festival to be held in Long Beach at the Convention Center. I arrived around noon, and didn't leave until closing at 7:00 p.m. It took me that long to see everything. There were over 500 booths in the vendor area, plus many display areas for the quilts. LOTS of art quilts to see, and such gorgeous eye candy. So much to see, and so much walking....those motorized scooters were lookin' pretty good by the end of the day! I was tickled that my Journal Quilt was on display, and when I found it, a woman was standing there reading it. I was thrilled. Here is a photo from a distance of the 2008 Journal Quilt display, and then a group shot, with my quilt at the top (on the inside of the constructed display).

Here is a photo of my "haul" for the day. Not bad, considering how much was for sale. The only disappointment I felt was that most of the booths featured traditional quilting supplies, and specialty materials for art quilts were harder to find. I bought the Lutradur, ExtravOrganza, and plastic texture plates at the Interweave Press booth (featuring their publications Cloth, Paper, Scissors and Quilting Arts, both of which I subscribe to). I met Patricia "Pokey" Bolton, editor of Quilting Arts and host of the new Quilting Arts television show on PBS (which I TiVo). She was working at Interweave's booth. I found the threads at the YLI booth and the 1/2 yard cuts of fabric from Creation Station (batik spiderwebs and skulls!). I couldn't resist the small purse, which I bought from some Hmong ladies who had a booth with their native handiwork. The magnetic sign ("Only Bad Witches Are Ugly") will go on my file cabinet at work, as my cubicle area features witchy decor.

Needless to say, I took lots of photos and I am feeling very fired up and mucho inspired. Yes, it has been a very good last couple of days!

Amazing how fast a month goes by! I've been working away on many things. Currently, I have five knit and crochet garments in various stages of completion. I just finished this summer hat, from Garnstudio DROPS pattern number 107-14. The yarn is Lily Sugar 'n Cream (100% USA Grown Cotton) in color Caramel; it photographed much lighter than it is. I made the smaller size and it came out rather large....good thing I didn't make the bigger size. The jumbo 14 oz. skein was on sale at Michael's for $5.00, and I still have lots of yarn left. I would like to try making another hat out of some of the cotton chenille I have on cones, and make some flowers for the front. It was a fast project, taking me two evenings to complete.

And since I am nothing without a deadline, I have fall art shows coming up that I need some new work for. Today I started creating something in techniques which are new to me. I need to stretch my creative repertoire, so I am experimenting. It's fun! Lack of time is my major problem, and when it's been really hot on weekends I don't feel like doing much fiber art. This weekend was a bit humid but overcast.

I had been feeling stuck with regards to things that require sewing, as my interest has been more in the "things created from yarn" area. But my mojo is back, I feel inspired, and I have some ideas that I want to see come to fruition. Today I spent a lot of time uploading photos to add to my page on the Fiber Arts/Mixed Media group. You can find that page here. It's a really neat social networking group, and I've been neglecting it in favor of Ravelry, but my Ravelry groups have been slow lately....probably because it's summer. Anyway, I'll have more photos and projects to post here soon!