Welcoming the Summer Solstice with fiber and friends

We ushered in  the the Summer Solstice with our Mavens of the Fiber Forest group at Saori Santa Cruz  Studios Friday. THE DAY STARTED AND ENDED WITH STRESS.  First thing The water companys main water main broke and we had no water! Luckly it was restored  and back on 30 minutes before everyone arrived. STAY tuned for what happen 30 mins after every one had left  another suprise .(see the end of the blog for.... the rest of the story.)
but first....

  A FABULOUS DAY!

 Those are  SF Giants champane flutes some fans brought!

 lots of fiber

 and food

 Check out this great idea from Jennifer . She buys apples from cosco they are packed in this crazy packaging  but she wanted to recycle the plastic dome packaging she did  she combed cormo fleece and made nests and brought to our gathering to spin undisturbed !

SHAR modeled her saori woven tunic she made in the" weave, sew, wear" saori  class now with the fringes trimed! love it!

  Maggie oohed  and awed

Some of Brenda's amazing wensleydale locks yarns , SHE IS A AWESOME SPINNER her website Pan's Garden

  Maggie spun on her LOUET victoria and on her navajo spindle

 KNITTING AND MELLOWING IN THE WARM AFTERNOON SUN

MAGGIE DID A GREAT CRAFT.... SMALL SILK  NECK SQUARE SCARVES PAINTED  WITH SILK DYES AND  PERMANENT MARKERS. WE TURNED THEM INTO MAVEN  SOLSTICE PRAYER FLAGS.

 Annabelle and Jennifer.....
 and of course champange to toast the summer solstice.

I SET UP  A" MAKE SHEEPIE SOAPS" TINTED WITH SANDEWOOD POWDER STATION.SO EVERY ONE COULD MADE THEM  AND TAKE HOME  THE CUTE SOAPS.

 SOME FINISHED  SILK PAINTED/DYESD SOLSTICE PEACE FLAGS

 SHAR LOVING THIS PROCESS

 SPINNING AND KNITTING, PAINTING, AND CARDING WOOLS, A WONDERFUL DAY WITH FREINDS.

 Shar's FLAG ( one of many
flags)

 BRENDA LOVES THE NEW LOUET ART YARN FLYER AND BULKY BOBBINS  FOR HER LOUET S10 WHEEL
ETSY STORE

  And now" the rest of the story".
 I was cleaning up and my husband had just arrived home when the neighbors  dogs started to make some very strange  disconcerting sounds, I mentioned this to Lee and he said " it is probably a fire engine siren " but I said I have not heard that that  kind of wail like that before from their dogs , this was different, and  10 mins later the sky was filled with CDF helicopters and small aircraft dumpping fire retardent on a structure not even 1/4 mile from us. so he was right!
 We live in the redwood forest, and with the drought this years I was very concerned and prepared for evauation announcements. It sounded like a war zone, my husband had flash backs of his army days. We waited on alert for several hours and then the sky was silent, cars were moving again on the road. Today we found out that it was homeless transients who started 4 fires from Santa Cruz and many miles apart, the one so close to us was one of them, and the authorities  caught the transients and incarcerated  the two of them that did this.
 So Grateful for CDF and the fire fighters. that was really scary!

Happy summer solstice 2013!

 peace, pace, pause, play....  in the redwoods
Jill Nickolene

www.saorisantacruz.com