Michigan Fiber Festival

 The Michigan GEARS (Gorgeous, Easy, Amazingly Rapid Socks) group, of which I am a member, demonstrated circular sock knitting machines at the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan last weekend.   

We had fun, met up with old friends and made some new ones.  

I am currently in process of organizing a workshop on CSM's in Marion, Ohio because someone came by and saw our group.   Class size will be limited, but I will post info when arrangements are completed. 

Fiber and Fusion Studio

 

 I rolled into Angela Marion's glass and fiber shop in the late afternoon yesterday.  The first thing I noticed, after her big smile and welcome sign, were the beautiful shawls hanging on the wall to my left. 

More shawls, as I turned to face the wall.   She told me she has been open at this location in Vandalia for eight years.  

We walked together into the next room and I was immediately taken with the display of felted hats. 

Next to the hats was a display of art glass vases, bowls and decor. 

Angela is a talented glass artist.  She explained that she has two glass studios, one in the garage attached to her shop, where she does small pieces, and another that she shares with her boyfriend who does large installations and restorations of stained glass, like for churches or Victorian houses. 

She has numerous glass pendants on display.  

She also offers a large variety of earrings, as well as pendants with chains and chokers.

She hand-quilted the quilt hanging on the wall.  It is a dramatic backdrop.  She doesn't offer quilting classes, though.  She said she is working on the next quilt in her "spare time". 

 

A framed, stained glass tulip.  And a set of three tulips.

Angela's boyfriend painted this lampshade.  I was impressed.

 

Angela explained the name of the technique used for this piece.  Forgive me, I don't remember it.  

This box top is on a leather box. 

 

She offers a collection of glass buckles and buttons that would be suitable for heavy, stable knitted garments. 

Whimsical birds and mushrooms. 

A woven glass bowl.

I'm not sure what this is.  But it reminds me of the piece inside my pie basket so I can carry two pies. The strips of glass are woven.  

Notice the blue ribbon on this bowl. 

Here is an example of a button used on a hat.  This particular technique uses a chemical reaction between the two colors of glass to make the black borders around the blue.  

She attends fiber festivals and sets up a booth as a vendor.  In fact, she just returned from the Great Lakes fiber show in Wooster, and prior to that, one in Franklin, Indiana.  At one of the shows, she purchased a collection of buttons from a Columbus yarn shop that has recently closed. 

Definitely some unique buttons in this group. 

Angela knits most of the samples  in her shop.  She spends a lot of her personal time knitting, to help customers of the yarn shop visualize what the finished garment will look like. 

This scarf resembles the stained glass that she loves. It is made from an Earth Fibers yarn (from Turkey) and the yarn has long color sequences that help to define the color blocks created through short-rowing. 

More display shawls.

 

A knit-along project from the ladies who knit at the shop.

The "Clearance" rack.

Angela is featuring Finull yarns from Norway for Fairisle and Shetland knitting and colorwork.  There are 135 colors, she carries most of them.  She said it is similar to Jamieson, or the "DOMY" yarn I posted about a few months ago, except the yarn is more consistent in thickness.  Jamieson is no longer shipping to the US at this time.  So Angela recommends this wool yarn as a replacement.  

As I walked toward the back of her shop, I was amazed at how many different rooms she has filled with yarn.  She mostly has the different yarn weights in separate rooms, so a shopper can go directly to the room they need to find a yarn for. 

I asked Angela if she could sum up her business philsophy, and it was actually printed on her T-shirt.  She said it was "Doing something you like and enjoy".  Or, Do what you Love, Love what you Do!

I told Angela I wished I lived closer to her shop so I could spend time there with the other knitters making beautiful things.  Angela described how her knitters have supported her through the last few years, which have been fairly difficult.  Angela lost a number of family members to COVID, and then on top of it, suffered a concussion herself while playing with a new puppy.  

No, my camera isn't tilted.  These bins are turned on the diagonal.  

She carries Earth Fibers, Leading Men, Cascade, Berocco, Skacel, Hikoo, Malabrigo, Knitting Fever, Three Irish Girls, and Knit 1 Crochet 2 among other yarns. 

Angela found these clay bowls, which come from a pottery in Seattle called "The Laughing Gnome".  The clay, however, comes from Ohio! 

Angela was so kind to me.  She let me wait in her shop on her day off, while I waited for my husband to come pick me and my bike up, so that I did not have to ride in a windy thunderstorm.  She even fixed me a delicious, steaming cup of cinnamon tea while we waited.  I met her father, who originally came from Mansfield!  Quite a coincidence, and again, what a small world!   

If you are in Southwestern Ohio, be sure and stop in at Angela's shop.  See her website for hours. 

She has "open knit" whenever she is open, although there is a group that comes regularly on Wednesday afternoons.  

Julie's Knit Knacks

 

I was so happy to see my friend Julie Esterlin today at her studio in Beavercreek, Ohio today.  I have known her since I began machine knitting in the 1980's.  She is one of the most gracious people I know, and a beautiful machine knitter.  I could easily accept her as a role model.  

Although I have known her for just ages, I have never been to her studio before. 

 

This knitted sign hangs above the entrance.

She loves teaching machine knitting and continues to hold club meetings at her studio on the first Thursday every month.  She is a very talented designer.  She shared with me that she had to choose between sewing and typing class in school, and she chose sewing.  

She showed me some of the samples the club discussed at the last meeting.  One garment had the club members guessing as to technique. 

 The camera does not do this garment justice, but it is a fairisle using Rayon chenille and an acrylic yarn in the same color.  The light is picked up differently by the two fibers.  You would never guess that this stitch pattern is one of the built-in Stitch World patterns. 

Julie is a consummate designer and showed me a few of the garments she had designed "a la St. John Knits".  St. John has a store in the ultra-toney Somerset Mall in Troy,  Michigan.  I once visited the store to window-shop.  I could not afford $1500 for a sweater.  But with instructors like Julie, we can make our own.

This skirt and sleeves are knitted on garter carriage and the body is knit in knit-weave.

This garment was has knitted sleeves and skirt, while the body of the vest is made of Ultrasuede.

Detail of the jacket above.

Julie has a range of sample garments on display at her shop, from Aran-style sweater, bias-knit vest, to intarsia and garter stitch, and finally center stage,  knit woven technique. 

This swatch is lace made on a Singer knitting machine.  We talked about the pros and cons of Singer versus Brother for knitting lace. 

Julie encourages knitters to experiment.  This stitch pattern was designed for punch lace.  Julie used it in Fairisle with a variegated yarn as the contrast color. 

The vest above is made from fabric worn right-side in.  Usually when knit-weaving, the thicker yarn is carried across the surface of the fabric, but Julie found that she like the "back" side of the fabric better.  This technique used rug yarn in six-foot lengths for the weaving yarn. 

Weaving yarn showing. 

Reverse side of fabric.

Julie has a whole rack of sample garments that illustrate various techniques and patterns. 

An example of a custom-knit baby blanket featuring double-bed jacquard. 

Julie still has several MK acrylic yarns in stock, she also has some back issues of machine knitting magazines and many patterns and instruction books. 

Pattern books

and more pattern books.

We discussed the current lack of knitting machine seminars in the Midwest.  I shared with her that the Techknitters in Chicago are still meeting via Zoom, and we both lamented the Monroe and Grand Rapids Seminars are no longer taking place. 

Julie's business card. She does not sell by mail order If you would like to visit her studio, just call for an appointment or stop by for the knit club meeting at 7 on the first Tuesday of the month.