I am thrilled to report that Hands On Color at Dubose Conference Center in Monteagle, TN was a huge success for all involved this past weekend. 17 participants thoroughly immersed themselves in knitting and crocheting beautiful small motifs from active twist handspun singles spun from a sumptuous array of handpainted fibers from Three Waters Farm. I even brought a small collection of my own handpainted fiber (am dyeing a little more now) and it was quickly consumed. I am so happy with everyone's work, their courageous journeys into crochet, freeform and art fabrics, vessels and even wristwarmers. Even the most newbie spinners dove happily and unflinchingly into the project at hand with beautiful results (see the yellow circle in the bottom photo...Claire is two month's new to spinning and knit this lovely piece from her spindle spun yarn...and the green and purple garter fabric at the bottom of the same photo is by Daria, only 5 months spinning). I've posted some gorgeous pictures here and on Ravelry and flickr. Photos on Flickr have detailed descriptions. Thanks to everyone who came. It was a fantastic weekend!I've been a fan of Prudence Mapstone and Jenny Dowde for some years now and have been wanting to try my own hand at freeform projects, both on my own and in class. I think one of the most successful aspects of our adventure this last weekend is that we all approached the work naively, teacher included. Our collective classwork provided instant gratification for all of us, because in two short days the work of seventeen fiber enthusiasts filled a table with beautiful motifs and it gave us all a palpable sense of what it would be like to do this kind of thing on our own. Each piece was lovely in its own right, but by putting our work together we could see how each piece takes a valuable and meaningful place in the whole picture.
We all had fun composing and photographing our arrangements. I can't wait for us to try this again at Harrisville in August. What fun! Thanks to you wonderful aussies, Prudence, Jenny and company, for your awesome inspiration.
