ARCTIC LACE!

Knitting Out Loud is proud to release our fifteenth audiobook, ARCTIC LACE! This wonderful audiobook is beautifully and lovingly read by its accomplished author Donna Druchunas, who was an absolute delight to work with.

ARCTIC LACE is the story of Donna's personal quest for the mysterious luxury yarn qiviut and the elusive Native Alaskan women who knit it into gorgeous lace patterns. Donna tells the moving stories of the women of the Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-operative (do check out their great website, one look will make you smile) in Anchorage, stories reflecting their courage and determination to maintain and honor a traditional culture in the midst of contemporary pressures. We learn about the rare Musk Ox from which qiviut comes, and hear remarkable stories of the daring first European explorers to traverse Alaska’s inhospitable terrain.



Donna Druchunas is the author of Successful Lace Knitting, Ethnic Knitting Exploration: Lithuania, Iceland, and Ireland, Kitty Knits and The Knitted Rug. She designs knits for Family Circle Easy Knitting, Interweave Knits, Knitter’s, PieceWork and several yarn companies.



Join Donna this fall on her Canada & New England Knitting Cruise! I can't imagine anything more fun! It is a nine day cruise which stops, among other exciting places, in Bar Harbor, Maine, one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

My garden here in Maine is just stirring to life. Below are Squill, or Scilla, which I dug up from the side of the road in Blue Hill (so I think of them as Blue Hill Squill) at the prompting, or rather bullying, of my delightful plant thieving neighbor Bettie Thornton (Bettie passed away some years ago, but she could out dig, out garden me right up to the end and I miss her very much). You can see that the Squill have naturalized in the grass.

My hellebore!
This is cheating, a photo from last year, but the Jeanne d'Arc crocus are blooming.
Muscari are my favorites.
What I especially admire about Donna Druchunas is her interest in and commitment to folk, or ethnic knitting. She brings this sensitivity and love to ARCTIC LACE.

Happy spring! Odd how it always seems like a new and fresh miracle every year.
-Kathy

New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild 2011

It was my very great pleasure to speak at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Spinners and Dyers Guild today. Last October I spoke in New Hampshire to the Seacoast Knitters, and the lovely Harriet Bailey arranged for me to do the talk again today for the NHSDG. The meeting was at the Epsom, New Hampshire Fire Station which has a beautiful hall on its second floor. I love New England.

I had driven to New Hampshire yesterday (it is a four hour drive so not practical as a one-day trip) and spent the night with my friend Kathleen Kearns (she designed my website and is currently working at M.I.T. I have known Kathleen for twenty years, our daughters are best friends - my daughter did the drawings on Kathleen's website - and our husbands, both painters, are currently painting together in Texas) which was a great treat.

Today was stunning, as only a warm sunny spring day in New England can be after a long snowy winter. We were all euphoric. Harriet Bailey met my car and insisted on helping me carry things in, and as she is a tiny bit older than I we quarreled for a minute over this and then I gave in. She is an inspiration.
The ladies were wonderful.
Judith Bastianelli showed me a Corsican spinning technique, which I am guessing must be thousands of years old. She learned of this method of spinning with well, a twig, then saw it again on the island of Corsica.
Below are Ruth Stevens and Judith Bastianelli in their lovely hand-knits.

I am sorry I didn't get the name of the lady below, but her beautiful sweater is all her own hand-spun! *I have just received her name: Judy Gauthier.
Gorgeous Ashford wheel.

Fran Emory is on the left, and I did not get her friend's name (so sorry!). Look at their wonderful hand-knits! *I have just received her name: Susan Burns.
Below is Fran Emory in a vest she designed and knit based on...
these buttons!


People brought their fiber in lovely baskets.
This is a gorgeous Canadian spinning wheel designed for production spinning, Harriet Bailey informed me.
Beautiful metal foot pedal!

I am back home now and it is 8:30 pm. I stopped at the new Trader Joe's in Portland on the way home and bought coffee, wine, figs and olive oil. Listened to a 1940's Sherlock Holmes radio theater with Basil Rathbone in the car. May watch a little Perry Mason before I turn in. Tomorrow I will work on Macbeth, Tudors, Borgias, Medicis etc for Senior College, and on taxes for the government.
-Kathy

Heaven: the Newport Spin-In, 2011

There might not be anything more satisfying than being in a room full of spinners.
Yesterday the Ewe Spinners hosted a day of spinning in Newport, Maine. I went as a vendor, but brought my new spinning wheel, the one my husband just made for me (see previous post). And I learned to spin. Yes, the miracle happened. Amazing. I am now a spinner. Not a good spinner, but a spinner nonetheless.
There was (and often is at fiber events) a used equipment sale table.
And the charming vendor next to me had gorgeous fleece from her Shetland sheep and these cards for sale. They were her drawings of Maine barns. But I didn't get her name (help me here Karen, Toni and Cindy - didn't you guys by fleece from her?).
This sweater is knit from hand-spun yarn which is 15% angora.

There were several men spinning.
Gorgeous hand-spun (from Maine sheep) and hand-dyed yarn from Random Roving, available from Village Books.

Luscious hand-dyed roving from Purple Fleece.

Christine Macchi of the non-profit fiber advocacy group Maine Fiberarts was there. Maine Fiberarts has a beautiful visitors center in Topsham, Maine which includes a gallery, reference library and fiber arts slide collection. They also have a great email newsletter of state wide fiber events.

Karen Jelenfy of Village Books wore her "believe in fiction" tee shirt.
Another gorgeous hand-knit!

More wheels.

Astrig Tanguay of Searport's Fiber College had amazing hand-knit socks on. Fiber College (Sept. 8-11, 2011) will have Beth Brown-Reinsel as one of their many wonderful teachers this year.

Lovely cuffs!
More wheels...



Here's Debbie Bergman, of Purple Fleece, with her drop spindle. Debbie stood by me and my spinning wheel, gently instructing me, as I awkwardly started again and again, until I finally did it. Became a spinner. Karen Jelenfy, my spinning buddy, cheered me on. I couldn't have done it without either of you. Thank you!


Astrig's Rose spinning wheel. In memory of her mother, Rose. What could be a nicer.




Then finally we had to pack up to leave.
Some of us (not I) had amazing carrying cases for their wheels.

What a day! Happy spinning, everyone!
Kathy