Olds and Sad News

It just seems like I never get a chance to get over one thing before I am on to the next. Upon arriving home I discovered that a good friend and mentor who is an octogenarian is not expected to live much longer. It has become incumbent on those who are her friends to help out until family can care for her or she is placed in palliative care. So no sooner than I come home from Olds than I have to turn off the brain from spinning and turn on the brain to home care. This friend has been a great chum in my spinning world for many years and we have spent many an autumn day stirring pots of woad on her front deck as we experiment with natural dyes. She and I have started a spinning group and demonstrated at Fall Fairs, have taken our craft to schools and traveled the Peace region for workshops on spinning and dyeing. It has been hard to watch her health unravel over the last two years in a struggle to combat Cancer. She will not survive it.... this I know, and so my partner in spinning and dyeing needs a friend right now. I will do what needs to be done and when her time here ends I will miss her companionship greatly as my experiments with colour and wool continue on.

Meanwhile it is hard to turn your mind from one thing (Olds) in an about face, and on to another thing (the care of a friend in her last days). But I will give it a try.

In the meantime, and as promised, here are some pictures.... some of the highlights of my trip to Olds College.

This is the Land Sciences building where all my classes are held.Another picture in front of the Land Sciences building....This is the Rose Garden in front of the Land Sciences building.This was taken just to the left of the Rose Garden in front of the Land Sciences Building. There is a Lili Garden here though the lilies were not in bloom yet.Lilacs were blooming a plenty.....Meanwhile, before I left for Olds I was working on a bag for a fellow who was trading a Navajo spindle with me.... this is it before it was finished. (I did finish it and it looked great with a blue cabled handle.)We hit the road on Thursday morning and we hit all kinds of weather on the way.... this was the sky just past Rocky Mountain House.... just above the trees there is a terrible look to the clouds..... I wasn't overly sure that we wouldn't get a tornado.... but we didn't.We stopped along the way and my traveling companion managed to have a few moments where she returned to her childhood.My first class was a dyeing cotton class.... this is raw cotton that is being dyed. A little blue....A little red.....
Then we washed some cotton rovings.....
And dyed them too.... here we are with our dyed rovings.....But of course the rovings needed to be washed..... so we washed... the instructor Joan Ruane is on the right....In the evenings there was no shortage of things to do.... socials... spin ins, and fashions shows....
I missed the social this year as I was determined to finish my Madder vest in time for the fashion show. But here we are in the next 3 pictures spinning away on drop spindles and spinning wheels in an attempt to finish a cashmere spider and web in just over three hours... we did it. Here's MW.... one of my class/room mates....
And JM who is a shepherd supreme.... and a lady who I bought some of my sheep from....
And then there is RG who I traveled with, roomed with, did my classes with....

Now Olds College is pretty particular, being an agricultural college, about picking things from their gardens.... it is basically frowned upon.... seriously....you can be thrown off campus for picking things or destroying things and so when we decided to make a spider web for the spin in and realized that we would need a branch.... well finding said branch was not for the faint of heart. So it was with trepidation on the day of the spin in, that saw two of our team climbing behind bushes while the other acted as a distraction from any that might see the breaking of a branch. What was funny was that just as the team member with the ability to extract the branch from said bush was climbing out back onto the walkway a car alarm started up for for a split moment she thought she had been caught red handed... thank heavens it was only someone's car alarm going off.... and the branch was put to good use holding our web and spider of cashmere that very night at the spin in. So here is our entry in the spin in..... we didn't win.... we didn't even place.... but I think the contest was stacked.... there were 81 students and 130 votes.....obviously some voted more than once..... (I'm just a little choked that we didn't win) but our spider was donated to the Cashmere Association to help with the promotion of their product.We have here a tapestry based on Van Gogh's wonderful painting done by my level 4 instructor... I thought about all the hours that went into this and the beautiful colours of all the hand spun and hand dyed and then hand woven threads and I stand in awe of his amazing work. He's definitely an artist.

Once Monday rolled around I began the level 4 class and right off the bat we were spinning fibre like bison, camel down, and cashmere. Our second day we were learning about reeling silk which you can see us doing in the next few pictures.....
I'm pooped as I have been uploading pictures all day.... so I will end here and carry on with some more pictures from my awesome trip to Olds.....

In the meantime think of me and maybe say a prayer for me as I try to help an old friend and mentor tomorrow morning.....