Madrona Fiber Arts Festival 2010

Venue for last weekend's fiber festival: Hotel Murano in Tacoma, WA. About an hour's drive from the big 'burbs--- the hotel takes it decor theme from the nearby Tacoma Glass Museum.


Digs for the weekend: (And I'm certain the Tied Up sign refers to yarn and yarn endeavors, of course.)


View from floor 23: Downtown district and Puget Sound. (Good grief--- when the sun is shining in Seattle, I daresay there's no prettier place.)


The hotel's art collection features glass artists from around the world and each guest room floor showcases a different artist.
Hiroshi Yamano's work inside and just outside of my room:

The ink drawing (bottom right) depicts the artist's inspiration for his sculptural work. A quote from the artist: “I am a fish who is always looking for something. I am a fish who cannot stop swimming until my body stops moving. Maybe I will swim forever, like the universe.”

Here are my friends and cohorts from Eastside Spinners: We'd talked about, coordinated itineraries and anticipated this retreat for what seemed like forever! It was so great to spend the weekend with them!

Marie "Diva", spinning on her new electric spinner in Marta's room. Rita, Scott, and "The Chicken" attended as well. Bottom right: Marie, Marta, Nancy, Jill (The "Braidy" Bunch) Get it? Fiber, braid.... Braidy ;P

My class schedule began with Jacey Boggs -art yarn spinning:


Core spinning and super coils:

(Marta's awesome super coil and Stormy with her pretty core spun.)

Amber and Samantha's core spun:

I met Samantha at Knot Hysteria last November. It was fun to see her and her beautiful family again at Madrona.

Clockwise: Jacey demonstrates beehives, cocoons and start of super coil.


Adam, (Knitguy on Ravelry) stopped by the class to bring Jacey a treat:

Alexis was so sweet to let me take pics of her awesome hand spun sweater. Isn't it absolutely amazing? She happens to know a few of the sheep that provided the wool for the sweater ;)

Jacey demonstrated each technique near point in small groups so that we could all have a chance to get a very close look at everything she taught. Jacey is such an awesome teacher, technician and artist--- I really loved the class and enjoyed the art yarn even more than I expected. Given that I don't normally knit with art yarn, I originally signed up for Jacey's class because I thought learning new techniques might help my conventional spinning. Instead, I discovered that making art yarn is entirely way too much fun and I definitely see more of it in my spinning future!

After six hours of class, nighttime at the hotel:

Colored-glass "Viking Ships" above, by Scandanavian artist, Vibeke Skov. The ships were installed at the hotel by the artist himself.

At the Saturday night banquet, Linda Cortright, editor of Wild Fibers magazine gave us a first-hand account of her amazing experiences amongst the nomadic tribes of the Himalayas. The cashmere goats they have herded for thousands of years, are the source for today's cashmere industry.

Yaks are also essential to the nomadic culture.


A single tribe's herd can account for up to 8,000 goats. If you look closely, the goat pictured above is wearing a flower❀ behind its ear. When Linda asked the shepherd why that particular goat had been adorned, his reply was, "the goat is the one my daughter likes best."

Spotted this little goat later, on floor 21, I think ;)

Next day, Jean Wong's stitch pattern design class:


I enjoyed sitting next to Susan, a first year graduate of Jean's four year Nihon Vogue certification course. Susan showed me all the notions and gadgets Jean's second year students gave as mentor gifts to the first year students:

The round tool above measures curves to scale on flat design sketches. Cool, huh?

Here are my swatches for Jean's class: We were required to have three cable patterns and one moss stitch swatch to use for gauge and stitch count. Then we inserted our numbers into a template pattern for a pullover aran.

I added the heart-shaped sparkles because the class was on Valentine's Day. You like? ;)

The sweater pictured here was designed by another first year Nihon grad. I also included pics of my classmate's pencil jar. I loved that she brought the jar to class because "the jar and its contents belong together." I agree ;)


Lace cardigan designed and knitted by Jean Wong. She doubled the buttons to give them emphasis with regard to the weight of the yarn.

I was surprised to learn that Jean does not publish any of her sweater designs. "I design sweaters, I teach design," she told us. " I don't write patterns."
And Jean's precise manner and attention to detail certainly made for an awe-inspiring class.

Lunch break at the hotel restaurant: Grilled tofu with roasted butternut squash & peanut noodles, delish.


Last class for the weekend: Judith MacKenzie-McCuin's Popular Wheel Mechanics. What a wealth of knowledge and insight she commands! (Judith spins on her beloved Jensen.)



With just a small adjustment to her wheel each time, Judith easily spun a range of yarns from chunky to laceweight. Judith's motto: adjust the wheel, not the (intentional) spinner.


Every single wheel in the class got personal attention from Judith. In addition, she absolutely made every single student in class feel completely affirmed with their wheels of choice.

The class assistants and helpers at the retreat were dubbed, Angels. Judith's assistant, Nichole definitely lived up to her title ;)

I found out that she is a fellow Little Gem spinner, even though she brought her Pocket wheel to class. Here, she helped me oil "Gemma" with Tri-flow teflon bicycle oil.

Judith also recommended that I switch from the plastic bobbins I'm currently using to wood ones. The plastic actually warps over time and compromises spinning quality. I'd never noticed the warp in my bobbins before she pointed it out--- now its quite obvious! Gah!

I have yet to acquire the wood bobbins, but here is the art yarn I spun in Jacey's class in the meantime:


Until next time!

(Flickr photo set here)