Black Sheep Gathering 2010

It seems like it’s been forever since I last blogged, but it’s only been two months.  May and June are always a little crazy for me.  Lots of activities to wind up the school year, Black Sheep Gathering, and then Anthony and I took off for two weeks in B.C. Canada.  We haven’t even begun to go through the trip photos, so the next few posts will be to catch up on all the crafty stuff that still went on during the last few months.

I have to say that this Black Sheep Gathering was probably my best yet.  TheBon and I did Black Sheep Bingo again, and it was a ton of fun.  This was our third year putting that together, so it’s really feeling like we are getting a smooth system down. We’ll be doing it again next year, so keep your eyes out for sign ups starting some time in April.

This was also the third year that I’ve participated in the Sheep To Shawl competition.  And this year we rocked the house!

We had a stellar team this year.  Our weaver was Suzie Liles of the Eugene Textile Center.  Janis of Dyelots designed the shawl and put together the team.  The spinners were Sandra, Celeste, Jackie, Becky and myself.

You can’t see it in the photos, but the edge has beads in it.  The shawl was stellar, and makes up for all the disappointments I felt in past years, but we worked our butts of for that blue ribbon.  We barely got it off the loom in time, and we really didn’t have any time to do any sort of light blocking or steaming.  It just goes to show what a great weaver we had.  It immediately lay flat and draped beautifully.

Our warp was bright colors pulled with the dark chocolate fleece.  The weft was just the dark chocolate fleece.  The color combo was beautiful together (I still don’t understand weaving very well, but the color blending is fascinating.)  The chocolate fleece was very sproingy and beautiful to spin.  A little hard to spin as fine as we were (the beads had to fit on!) but we managed.

I also entered two shawls into the Fiber Arts division.  One was my Wedding Shawl, the other my Muir.  They both did very well in the judging (both perfect score).  My Muir got a third place ribbon and my Wedding Shawl got a first!  The big surprise was that my Wedding Shawl also got Reserve Champion!

That was a total shock and surprise.  It also makes my wedding shawl a little extra special.

After such a great Black Sheep Gathering, I couldn’t help but be inspired, so I’ve wanted to start a whole bunch of new projects.  Since we went on our trip immediately after, I didn’t get started until last week, but now projects are well underway.  Plus summer means more crafting time for me!

Will be back sooner this time for sure!  Until then, happy knitting!