I haven't posted lately because I spent 4 days at Convergence in Tampa spinning with Rita Buchanon! This was a wonderful experience. Rita is not only an accomplished, spinner, weaver, designer and dyer but has loads of information and history of fibers.

The 3-day workshop was learning to spin plant fibers. We spent Sunday on cotton. Even though I had spun cotton before, it had been a while and I was totally lost. The short fibers were very hard to spin. I haven't mastered this difficult but wonderfully soft fiber but, I'm spinning up all the cotton I have right now for practice. Cotton lint is much easier to spin than cotton sliver and cotton top is the most difficult. I plan to knit a dishcloth out of the cotton regardless what it looks like so I will have a keepsake from this project.

The next 2 days we spun ramie (remember those sweaters from the 80s), flax (linen), bamboo, tencel and other celulose and bast fibers. I fell in love with ramie. It is so soft and silky and very inexpensive ($2 an ounce). It's becoming more and more difficult to find. I bought 18 oz. of ramie at the Convergence Market.

I also bought some flax. I always read that flax had to be spun counter clockwise and wet. Rita says this isn't true but she does recommend plying the flax wet to smooth down all the little fibers that stick out. Imagine being able to create linen from flax.

The 4th day was a different workshop. We learned to spin very thick and very thin wool. Once again, spinning thick wool is going to take a pounds of fiber and lots of practice, but it's also a lot of fun. We also talked about plying wool to make thicker fiber.

I learned that you can also spin the fiber from milkweed plant (not the pod but the fiber in the stalks) and Kudzu! I fought to eradicate kudzu from the face of the earth for years. I'm glad they've finally found a use for it!







Rita wore a jacket or top everyday that she made from fiber she had spun and then woven into fabric. She had several pieces in the Convergence Gallery exhibit.

We brought towels to class to keep the fuzz off our clothes. Of course, Rita brought a towel she had woven in a reversible terrycloth technique.

Here's another hat! This one is for Phoebe.

Here's something I work on when I make long car trips. It requires a lot of undivided attention and a captive audience. I can't even listen to my iPod or watch TV while working on this sweater. It is from Debbie Bliss's Book, How To Knit available at http://tinyurl.com/33rc94

Now you would think if it was in a how-to-knit book, it would be for beginners. Well, I can see that it's not NOW, but I was just getting back into knitting when I started this project 4 years ago. It is not for beginners or the faint of heart. I had to completely rewrite the pattern and put it into a binder so I could keep up with the rows. There are so many repeats, etc. which makes it very hard to keep up with.

I finished the back and got up to the V-neck on the front when I realized I had left off two whole rows of entralac repeats out of the back. Lucky for me this is a typical Debbie Bliss pattern and her small will fit a baby elephant. It's the perfect length for me.

I spent probably 4 hours knitting and frogging the right side of the V-neck, but that's ok. That side is almost done. I just hope I can remember what I did so the other side will be easier.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for sleeves. I hate the sleeves in the pattern. They are way too bulky. I thought about making it short sleeve since it is cotton and I live in Florida but the V is so long, I'd will have to wear something under it. I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes.

DETAIL

I took the left over cotton yarn from Phoebe's hat and the other little hat I made from a Debby Ware kit http://www.debbyware.com/ and made the bodice for this little dress. It's done from side-to-side in a moss stitch. The lace and the buttons are crocheted.