Amazing SAFF Weekend: Part 1

The first day, before opening. Vendors scurrying to make it all perfect before the doors open on SAFF 2014!

This is the definition of frustration: realizing that you only got pics of about half the cool people you met at the fiber festival. It was all so full-blown and fantastic, that I got caught up in the moments and forgot to pull out the camera as much as I would have liked.  On the one hand, this stinks because there are some really great people that I would love to have been able to show you and now I can't. On the other hand, thank goodness I DID get caught up in the moments, because, hello??? SAFF!!!! It was great and since one day last year led to two blog posts, you should be prepared for more this year. After all, I was there for 3 days and part of one evening. And that's a lot of SAFF, I'm telling ya.

Because of the long weekend of intense work and dusty mountain air, today I'm feeling slightly less spry than average (translation: I'm exhausted and pretty much just want to lie on the sofa and stream British detective shows on Netflix. All day.)  So I'm going to give you a quick summary of my Amazing SAFF Weekend, move my laundry to the dryer, pour myself some more iced tea and find the TV remote.

In short: It was pretty fabulous! Going for one day as a shopper was fun, but having the privilege to be a vendor was over-the-top. I loved getting to know some of the other vendors, plus having a location for folks to find me was super convenient. I met new people, saw old friends, and believe it or not, ran into the mom of my daughter's best friend from dance class, circa 2003! It made for a very special trip.

The night before opening day: the setup!

I also managed to sell some kits and patterns and I won't lie: that felt pretty good.  A lot of hard work went into preparing it all and it humbles me to know that people were willing to add those kits and patterns to their Special SAFF Purchases of Awesomeness. I sincerely hope they enjoy knitting their projects up as much as I did putting it together for them.

Thank you so much, kind knitters and indigo enthusiasts, for your vote of confidence in me. The only thing that kept me from hugging ALL of you was the vague semblance of professional cool that I was trying to maintain.

Stay tuned for much more about my SAFF 2014 adventures. I have much to tell and more to show but right now I hear the sofa calling my name...

Tutorial: Add a Zipper and Lining to Your Knitted Bag

Y'all. I am not a seamstress. I have great respect for them, but I am not one of them. I have always wanted to learn to quilt, no doubt due to the genetic code relating me to this marvelous quilter. When I realized that sewing was not really my thing, I decided I would knit quilts, which is crazy and, as it turns out, totally do-able.  That, however, is a blog post for another day.

Today is about using the skills you have to make things. Not being a seamstress, adding a lining to a knitted bag first sounded pretty daunting, but all it takes is few simple steps, some fabric, thread, a sewing needle and a zipper. If I can do it, so can you!

This applies to those of you who might purchase a certain pattern available today for the first time, or anyone who has ever knitted a bag and thought, If I don't line that, I'm in big trouble.

Step 1: Knit your bag. You'll want to have taken care of any blocking or weaving in ends before you get to the zipper + lining stage. The bag shown is a small, flat accessory bag, but you can add linings and zippers to larger bags as well. Just size it all up!

Step 2: Add a zipper like this:

Step 3: Sew a lining by hand (or by machine, if you have access to a teenager with a sewing machine and the mad skills to use one). In some cases your lining fabric might need to be trimmed to size. If that fabric is hand-dyed Shibori tie-dye indigo, save the scraps and make something small.

Step 4: Add the lining to the bag. Remember how you folded down the top edges of the lining? Pin it in to the bag and sew to the zipper so you will have a hem in one easy step (along with a lining sewn to a zipper). The end of the zipper (they always seem too big, but I might be overcompensating when I buy them. Hush.) will need to be tucked down in between the bag and the lining. Out of sight, out of mind.

Step 5: Enjoy! I also add a tassel or zipper pull to the end of my zipper. Some choices in that department include: a tassel, some i-cord, a crochet chain, and a braid. Also a post for another day!

I hope this brief, very amateur foray into sewing was helpful for you. My apologies to the talented seamstresses out there who might have cringed through this tutorial, but this is for those of us who knit our quilts, remember?

The patterns for the bags pictured will be available soon in my Ravelry shop, if you haven't already bought yours at SAFF!

SAFF: Blast from the Past

Today, since I am busy packing to go to SAFF, I offer you a Blast from the Past--a re-visit to last year's My First Trip to SAFF post. Enjoy and I hope to see you there this year!

 

From Nov. 1, 2013....

Last weekend I finally made it to Saff!  The Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair has been going on for 20 years, and I've tried to go in years past, honest.  This year: success!
 

So much to see! So many people!

Wendy and me

The fun thing about fiber/knitting events is getting to see folks I don't see all the time. Wendy and I got to touch base for a bit and swap Indigo dye stories and plans for world domination via knitwear.  We get closer to our goal all the time...

Me and Pat

Pat slowed down long enough for a blurry pic with me.  I've decided that I will start a blog one day and it will be filled with pics of me and Pat, running into each other at fiber fairs. I think that's a good plan, because Pat makes me (and everyone else, for that matter) smile, and we should all smile more, right?

Buying our first Turkish spindles. The guy on the right MADE them!

My goal at Saff was to find a really good Turkish drop spindle. No, make that, a GREAT one.  Turns out that Knitty and Color is a wonderful source of top-notch Turkish drop spindles--well-made, beautiful, and reasonably priced. I can't recommend them highly enough!

Gale, of Gale's Art, who fit right in with our crazy bunch.

For roving, I went over to Gale's Art and, despite her enormous quantities of amazing hand-dyed roving in a million beautiful colors, I bought natural, sheep-colored roving.  I loved it and that was all that mattered.

Me, Gail, and her Vintage Winter Shawl

And folks in the background wondering who I am that I've got people taking pics of me everywhere I go.

Last February I taught a class at the SC Knitting Guild's Knit Inn and afterward, the lovely Gail contacted me with a finished pic of her class project.  As I was walking through the barn at Saff, I saw that project and knew I had seen it before.  Sure enough, it was Gail herself, and the shawl was even more gorgeous in person!

Overall it was a great trip--cold, exhausting, exhilarating and fun!  Do I want to go back again next year? Absolutely! Will I dress a little more warmly if the forecast high is less than 50 degrees? You'd better believe it!

Benefits of Knitting

There are some articles floating around the internet again about the benefits of knitting. On the one hand, it's nice when the media has something nice to say about your hobby. On the other hand, do we really need to defend what we do?

Knitting has gone in and out of favor over the years, including a solid block of time as a Men Only Club (think Medieval craft guilds--no girls allowed). In my lifetime (which does NOT include the aforementioned Medieval era, no matter how old my kids think I am) there has been a resurgence, as young crafters have discovered how much fun it is to knit, and yarn and needle producers have discovered that the more yarn and needles they produce, the more money they make and the happier we knitters are to have choices.

As it so happens, I already have a rocking chair. So there.

Along with the resurgence has come more than a few dismissive observations:

• Scorn:  "My grandmother used to knit"--this implies that not even decrepit old ladies still do such a dumb thing.
• Ridicule:  "You do know you can BUY a pair of socks for $2 from Wal-Mart, right? You don't HAVE to make them yourself."--this implies that I shop at Wal-Mart, but am also so stupid that I am totally ignorant of mass production.
• Profiling:  "All you need now is a rocking chair!" -this implies that either I am prematurely gray under my Clairol or worse still, old at heart.

Negative comments have made us a bit defensive, and so we tout studies about the therapeutic benefits to arthritic hands and aging brains as excellent reasons why we knit.

All hobbies that involve working with one's hands have physically beneficial side effects--wood working, fly fishing, sewing, painting, and ceramics are only a few examples, because there are so many. Any hobby that engages your mind will have mental benefits. Any hobby that can be social in nature will improve your happiness through relationships with fellow enthusiasts. Why must knitting be singled out to be defended for its helpful merits?

I read somewhere (Yarn Harlot, I think) that worldwide, there are more knitters than golfers. When was the last time you heard someone brag on the benefits of golf to justify greens fees? (I am not dissing golf in any way, I promise.)

The next time another "helpful" article about the benefits of knitting comes across your path, think about it from this perspective. Is knitting something that needs to be justified? Or can we all just agree it is something we enjoy and leave it at that? One day, non-knitters will be the ones who feel as though they must explain why they don't knit. Until that newsworthy day, I plan to keep knitting, happily secure in the thought that I needn't defend it to anyone.