Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

This weekend is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It has been going on for 40 years! I have been hearing about it for a few years now, but this was my first trip there. So here is a little pictorial review of the show, taken with my phone.



This was the main walkway into the Festival. Lots of festival type food.
 

This is the largest building full of vendors. There were several smaller barns jam packed full of people.

Lots of grassy areas full of more vendors.

This vendor hand makes her own pin cushions, they were exquisite.
 

Tons of spinning supplies, from fleeces, to roving, to spindles & wheels.

Dueling fiddlers.
 



There's lots of sheep, pens and pens of all varieties.
 

These guys are waiting their turn for their competition.



Sheep shearing.

Fleeces for sale.
 

Lots of lamb to eat at the Festival, lamb burgers, kebobs, enchiladas,  chili, tamales, gyros and more.

 

Podcaster meet-up, I am here with the Knitgirllls.
They have a great video podcast.

More tents with lots of indie yarn companies.

 

Stash enhancement.

 

 

Thank you to a new shop in the area, Chelsea Yarns for putting together a bus trip. I didn't have to drive, I could just knit!  I made quite a bit of progress on a sweater I am knitting.

 

 

Stop in the Name of Love

 

 

I reached my goal, 500 sales on Ravelry before my one year anniversary of my Adirondack pattern. 504 to be exact.

 

 

 

My latest design, however, has not been for my own internet sites. I have a new design for The Yarn Company in NYC. It will be an exclusive design to them and they will sell it in a kit with the yarn. I posted my progress on Facebook and The Yarn Company will feature it in their next newsletter.

 

I started with Lorna's Laces Solemate in the Stoplight colorway, exclusive to the shop.

I had just one skein to work with. I knew it would be some kind of neck piece.  It wasn't really enough yarn for a shawl. I didn't really want a cowl.

I figured I would probably need some buttons so I checked out my glass vintage buttons. I decided on the gold translucent buttons.

It became a collar, I guess you could call it a cowl with buttons.
The pattern is called, Stop in the Name of Love. 

 

The leftover yarn became wristlets.






 

Ravelry Love

 

If you do not know what Ravelry is, stop right now, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go check it out here. Of course, if you are not a knitter, don't bother.

Some people say it is like Facebook for knitters, but it is so much better. Most people use Ravelry as a reference, to find patterns they might like to make, check out yarns, chat with others in the forums or to organize their own projects and library.

I use Ravelry primarily to sell patterns, lucky for me most people use Ravelry to buy patterns. I noticed that as I was approaching the 1 year anniversary of my Adirondack pattern on Ravelry, I have almost 500 sales! I'm hoping to make that by April 20.

My shawl page above has the pattern for sale and it will take you to my Ravelry store, just in case you are interested.

 

 

Original Adirondack made with Madelinetosh Vintage.

Adirondack adpated to sock weight yarn.

Speaking of blogs, that is the other thing I use Ravelry for. I know a lot of people find blogs cumbersome to follow, either using an RSS feed or adding it to your email which is sometimes an option, but who wants more email?
I simply friend anyone who has a blog I would like to follow, yes you can have friends on Ravelry, but you can friend anyone you like and they cannot ignore you or take their time trying to decide whether to accept your request or not or unfriend you. (Not that I have any experience of that on Facebook or would ever do that to anyone.)
After you set up your personal page and friend all of the people whose blogs you want to follow, like The Yarn Harlot, Sarahmontie or Franklin Habit (yes, they do not have the option to not accept you as a friend), you can simply click on your friends list and you will have some choices. You can just admire your list of friends, or you can check out the activity of your friends, like their posing of their projects, or you can see the list of friends' blogs. They are all in one place for you, of course this only works if they are on Ravelry; it may not work for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, unless they are knitters.

 

INC 8 EOR, Red, Ribbon, Alpaca

This is what I wanted to name my "art" pieces. My sister convinced me to go with, In The Round, Red; In The Round, Ribbon, and In The Round' Alpaca.  I know no one would understand the title I wanted to use but that was OK with me, I even thought it was a little cool, but logic won out.

The opening of the Ocean County Artists' Guild Fiber Art Invitational was yesterday and I have to say there was a lot of energy all afternoon. Having nine different artists each with their own interpretation of fiber art gave the show a very diverse feel.

In my last post I gave a little background about the pieces and their progress. In this post I give you the finished product.

I went with my pieces and an open mind to the Guild the Wednesday before the show. The curator of the show wisely had the idea to hang the pieces separately. I was thinking I might use dowels to hang them, but I didn't have any with me. Friends ran home to gather up dowels and we played. Each one seemed to fall into place differently.

The red one hung by itself on the wall, with the top quarters draping down and creating a tent like look.
The alpaca one was above a small table and reminded us of a spider web when it was spread out like a full circle. On the table I had a slide show running of the vests being modeled.
The ribbon one hung high above the antique fireplace and mantle showing the full drape of the ribbon yarn and making quite an impact when people entered the room. On the mantle I placed 8 by 10 photos of each one being worn as vests.

I would show the alpaca and ribbon vests displayed at the show in addition to the red one, but I am having technical difficulties and cannot figure out how to keep the photos from coming out sideways! (My son and husband have weighed in on this problem and we're still working on it. Basically I have a love/hate relationship with my computer.) I am definitely a better knitter than I am a techie.

The curator of the show, Francine, in front of a collaborative piece between two artists.

The Guild was busy all afternoon.

I didn't have permission to publish anyone else's work, so you will have to go to the Show to see the rest, check out the Guild's website for more details.

Here are the three vests being worn, wearable art.

Have you knitted anything that you would consider a piece of art?

Fiber Art Invitational

I was invited to exhibit in the Fiber Art Invitational at the Ocean County Artists' Guild. 

When does knitting make the crossover from craft to art?

I decided to do an adaptation of my Circle Swing Coat pattern which I consider a concept pattern and lends itself to more creativity than your typical knitting pattern.  By concept pattern I mean that you follow more of a recipe or formula rather than strict very specific instructions. For instance if I had to break it down to a formula it would be

Inc 8 EOR.

 

 


My plan was to make 3 pieces, each with the same formula but with a different theme.  The first one was the color red.  I chose all different fibers and textures as long as the yarn had some red in it I could use it.

 The finished piece is a vest and the slits in the circle are the armholes.







The next piece was all ribbon yarn, color was not an issue.  As you can see a very different effect.

The third one was made out of natural colored alpaca yarns. 

I took one simple concept and treated it 3 different ways. Of course you can see the colors are very different, but the feel and drape are very different too.

I hope you will come to the show if you are local, I would love to see you at the opening reception.  10 different fiber artists will be featured all with very different interpretations. The exhibit starts on Sunday, April 7 with a reception from 1-4, free admission and light refreshments.  It will run until April 30.  The Ocean County Artists' Guild is located at 22 Chestnut St. (corner of Chestnut and Ocean) in Island Heights, a beautiful historic home. 

Don't you want to see how they all get displayed and fit into the exhibit as a whole?  So do I. 

PS I only had to buy one skein of yarn, these pieces were all worked from my stash. 

Finally

I have finally published a pattern that I was working on last summer and blogged about on August 16 and September 1.  Sometimes a pattern will languish for one reason or another.  I wasn't thrilled about publishing it in the fall when it really seemed more like a spring/summer project.  I came across it again recently trying to follow through on some things that had been put aside. 

Back in September I was trying to decide on what photos to use and a name for the pattern.  I usually start with a working name for a pattern, most often I use the name of the yarn and what I am making. This was called Grass Cardigan, the yarn is Plymouth Yarn Grass.  Sometimes I will go for a name that has very little to do with the design (Brianna, Isabel, Adirondack) but this time I decided to simply name it

Drop Stitch Cardigan. 
A seamless short sleeve cardigan knit from the top
down. The round yoke has eyelets marking the
increases. The attached front bands are knit in
ribbing. Flattering A-line shaping is accented with
a dropped stitch pattern.

 

 

 

You can buy the pattern by clicking here.

I checked on Ravelry today and it is the top 20th pattern that Ravelers are viewing.  Keep checking it out on Ravelry and keep it up there.

 

 

This morning I participated in a local clean up.  Brown's Woods, named for the previous owner of the property, is just about two miles from my house but I hadn't been there since I catered some luncheons for Mrs. Brown sometime in the 80's.  In my former life I had a catering business.  Seeing a recruitment of volunteers to clean up the Woods on facebook, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to explore the property.  I found out that the house is being used as an office for the  Barnegat Bay Partnership, a local environmental organization.  The clean-up was organized by an energetic young girl who works for AmeriCorps, similar to the Peace Corps only in the US.  I will definitely come back with my daughter when she visits with her dog.

 

A lot of erosion by the river after Sandy.

Mushrooms anyone?

Look closely and you can see a plastic chair in the tree, compliments of Sandy.

Nice to know this is so close to home.

 

This sunset looks like a real fireball.