Color, Color, Color
Green has been achieved!
Left: Swamp green, right, Actual Green(tm)!
This is wool for the knotted pile class at SOAR, which we have just found out is the Last SOAR ever, sad to say. So it is now shaping up to be a grand farewell party, with people coming from far and wide (as usual). Maybe this year's venue was prescient: there are lounges and bars and will be lots of places for party-goers to gather and commiserate. And plan What Next. Because I am certain there will be a Next. It's how I get through bad news: something better is coming.
More color:
This is serendipitous color: the pygora (on the spindle and as a cloud of fluff) was a gift from Terry at Rainbow Farms Pygora at the last SOAR, which was held in nearby Tahoe. I've been spinning it off and on this year in small moments, (that's a Spindlewood Square spindle in Amboyna Burl wood I bought at SOAR in Tahoe too, just so I could start Right Away when Terry gave me the fiber!). I had no real plans for it, and then I set it down on my worktable next to some silk/cashmere I'd purchased from Abstract Fiber (also! at a SOAR, this one in New Hampshire, 2011).
The color matched! perfectly! and so they will become one yarn: a single of pygora, plied with a single of silk cashmere. Sort or erzatz Orenburg yarn, and destined (as of now) to become a lacey shawl of some sort (not Orenburg per se, but lace, and a shawl.).
I hope you can see by the above paragraph how important SOAR has been to me, over the last 20+ years that I have attended or taught there. It will leave a hole in my Fall calendar: a place where I knew I would see friends and find lovely fiber and tools every year that I chose to go. I'm sorry, I will miss it terribly, and miss some people I will likely never see again...but life goes on and many of us hope to gather together in other places, at other times. Plans will have to be made, while crying over our beer this one. last. year...!
Also on the color front:
Warp chains. Cotton, some painted a few weeks ago as a class demo in Walnut Creek. The top two warp chains were dyed in class, the bottom two (slightly darker colors) were dyed once I got home.
It was an experiment: every time I teach, people want to know how long the dye stock lasts in solution. The bottom two warp chains(done at home) were dyed with One Year Old Dye stock! The color is darker than the fresh dye stock because the older stuff was mixed up at a 2% solution (a darker depth of shade than the fresh stuff). But clearly: the color is still true and brilliant, even after a year as mixed up dyestock.
No guarantees, of course, that it will last that long, even if kept (as these were) in a cool, dark place (a cupboard). Just like there are no guarantees that anything will last forever: apparently SOAR included.
We can be grateful for what does last, as long as it does: dyes, gatherings, friendships and meetings with friends and colleagues: all of it is a gift as long as we have it. Enjoy it while it lasts, treasure your friends, use the tools that we have, each one teach one, make things and share in the making.
For all of that, and much more that I can never express in words: I am very, very thankful.
Left: Swamp green, right, Actual Green(tm)!
This is wool for the knotted pile class at SOAR, which we have just found out is the Last SOAR ever, sad to say. So it is now shaping up to be a grand farewell party, with people coming from far and wide (as usual). Maybe this year's venue was prescient: there are lounges and bars and will be lots of places for party-goers to gather and commiserate. And plan What Next. Because I am certain there will be a Next. It's how I get through bad news: something better is coming.
More color:
This is serendipitous color: the pygora (on the spindle and as a cloud of fluff) was a gift from Terry at Rainbow Farms Pygora at the last SOAR, which was held in nearby Tahoe. I've been spinning it off and on this year in small moments, (that's a Spindlewood Square spindle in Amboyna Burl wood I bought at SOAR in Tahoe too, just so I could start Right Away when Terry gave me the fiber!). I had no real plans for it, and then I set it down on my worktable next to some silk/cashmere I'd purchased from Abstract Fiber (also! at a SOAR, this one in New Hampshire, 2011).
The color matched! perfectly! and so they will become one yarn: a single of pygora, plied with a single of silk cashmere. Sort or erzatz Orenburg yarn, and destined (as of now) to become a lacey shawl of some sort (not Orenburg per se, but lace, and a shawl.).
I hope you can see by the above paragraph how important SOAR has been to me, over the last 20+ years that I have attended or taught there. It will leave a hole in my Fall calendar: a place where I knew I would see friends and find lovely fiber and tools every year that I chose to go. I'm sorry, I will miss it terribly, and miss some people I will likely never see again...but life goes on and many of us hope to gather together in other places, at other times. Plans will have to be made, while crying over our beer this one. last. year...!
Also on the color front:
Warp chains. Cotton, some painted a few weeks ago as a class demo in Walnut Creek. The top two warp chains were dyed in class, the bottom two (slightly darker colors) were dyed once I got home.
It was an experiment: every time I teach, people want to know how long the dye stock lasts in solution. The bottom two warp chains(done at home) were dyed with One Year Old Dye stock! The color is darker than the fresh dye stock because the older stuff was mixed up at a 2% solution (a darker depth of shade than the fresh stuff). But clearly: the color is still true and brilliant, even after a year as mixed up dyestock.
No guarantees, of course, that it will last that long, even if kept (as these were) in a cool, dark place (a cupboard). Just like there are no guarantees that anything will last forever: apparently SOAR included.
We can be grateful for what does last, as long as it does: dyes, gatherings, friendships and meetings with friends and colleagues: all of it is a gift as long as we have it. Enjoy it while it lasts, treasure your friends, use the tools that we have, each one teach one, make things and share in the making.
For all of that, and much more that I can never express in words: I am very, very thankful.
posted by Sara at 7:44 AM
6 Comments:
I always hoped I'd get back to SOAR and meet so many people again. Oh well, it's never going to happen now. At least the internet is an excellent way of keeping us all in touch.
This must be the last SOAR for all time, if you're dyeing green!
But yes, there are so many wonderful things in the world still to come, people to meet, cloth to weave, views to gasp at, sheep and silkworms not even born yet....
Sad sad sad - never made it to SOAR, and always thought maybe I could go after I retire, but that's 2 years away. And if I, who never made it, am sad, I can only imagine how those of you who got to SOAR must feel. Hugs!
After my first (and I guess now it's my last) SOAR the thought of getting back there was the pot of gold for me. I'm retiring at the end of this year but alas, no SOAR for me next fall :-(
You got greens! Lovely greens!
Have a Good SOAR, with lots of friends and inspiration and plans for the future.
SOAR changed my life so very fundamentally, brought me people I'd never otherwise have met, fiber I'd never otherwise have bought, toys and adventures.
I do so very much hope for a Next; a Better Next is hard to imagine
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