An Exciting Few Days

I have decided to abandon this project….it’s called Skip Plain Weave and it’s from Peter Collingwood’s’ book The Techniques of Rug Weaving. Sorry for the blurry image....
The weave structure is plain weave and the premise of the weave is that selected sections of warp are woven in plain weave in colour A and the weft skips behind the sections that are to be woven in colour B. I love the idea of this, but after 2 inches and masses of wool warp, the bell rung and I knew it was not the weave structure to use for my 4th “hand manipulated rug” sample! Well, more research is needed I guess. Lily Louet, my wonderful Spring loom has the old faithful spaced blocks on her. I’ve used a truly beautiful lavender 2/8 bamboo yarn for this scarf and so far, so good! My guild the Ponderosa Spinners and Weavers in Kelowna BC had our 15th annual Spinning Day on Saturday and we had a wonderful turnout. I managed to convince my friend Susan of Thrums fame to come for a visit at the same time. We had a wonderful day, although I didn’t get much spinning done, I did manage to keep the vendors busy. We were lucky enough to have 4 vendors at our Spinning day and I think that they all did well.Homespun Haven brought her Ashford looms and lots of yarn.
Aurelia Fibres brought stunning New Zealand roving.
Art of Yarn brought Louet Black Faced Leicester roving that was amazing as well as a great selection of Sweet Georgia BFL roving’s and Joybelee Farms came with a selection of natural dyes….it was wonderful! Susan and I managed to cram a lot into just 4 days and yesterday we drove up to her old stomping ground in The Shuswap. Don't you love the colour coordination? The Adams River Sockeye Salmon run is the biggest in a century, so we knew it was something not to be missed. This is Ngaire and Susan at the Interpretation Centre.To get to The Adams River the Sockeye have swum upriver some 350+ miles to get to their spawning grounds, to mate and die. They grow a wicked looking hump and beak and turn an amazingly brilliant red with a lime green head. Nature is astonishing in the colours she dresses her fellows – you just try getting the males in your life to wear that combination! The river breaks into slower running side streams and the salmon complete their four year life cycle by laying and fertilizing eggs only to then die by the millions. Yup, the smell is something special!The Department of Fisheries was busy checking for salmon that had been tagged in the Pacific Ocean and keeping a count of the run. They were hauling very full nets so it was quite a sight.

Susan's blog will have our very short but sweet visit from her perspective, so check it out at Thrums!