More Photos from the Lorraine Spinning Retreat

The organizers: Sandrine and Richard. Sandrine owns the francophone spinning forum, Tricofolk, and an online knitting and spinning boutique, Alysse Créations. Richard sells corsetmaking supplies on the same website. He also makes them to order, or will sell patterns. For fans of Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, this is your chance to create your own. Really cool with jeans.

The angora goat farmers and generous hosts of the retreat: Marylene (wearing glasses) and Alain. Marylene takes care of the goats, unless she's on the road selling the mohair products of an angora goat cooperative under the label, Horizon Mohair. When she's away, Alain takes over. They have a large room that functions as an fiber processing museum with old picking and carding equipment for young kids and their parents to learn about a mostly forgotten trade, that of spinning.

All of the spinners drove in, four of them with their pack mules, I mean, husbands. I flew in to Paris on frequent flyer miles and took the three-hour train ride to the farm.

The aspiring spinners: Garance and Amelie. Garance is the daughter of Laurence, a.k.a. Laine Zinzin. Garance learned to spin during the spinners' weekend for the first time because her Apple computer was back at home. Her mom says she's a whiz with PhotoShop. Amelie's mom, Florence (a.k.a. Pouxy because there is another Tricofolk spinner with the same name), is into chiengora and persian cats, which sells under the label, Canilaine. I was pleased that both teens went for my rovings in tresses which I had brought along for the supply swap (we also exchanged handspuns in a raffle). The fiber was dyed with pigments from Morocco and they couldn't resist the bright colors.

The inspiration: Pluckyfluff. Just as in Majacraft's Spinning Magic Weekend, Lexi Boeger's book, Spinning Revolution, was inevitably present. There were two copies being passed around. Since the technical aspect was difficult to understand for most of the spinners, Laurence translated for them.

The new fascination: The Little Gem2. That is Muriel on my foldable little wheel. As with all Majacraft products, the spinner controls the wheel, not the other way around. Moreover, you never need to oil to get it to operate smoothly. There were eight European spinners who came and at the end of the retreat, we were calling Majacraft in Tauranga, NZ, for Little Gems for two spinners. I'm proud to sell the Little Gem -- see the Fall issue of Spin-Off magazine. Spinners in France, Belgium and Switzerland may now order them from Sandrine at Alysse Créations

Finally, Laurence and me test-driving the charkhas for Africa and, at the same time, posing for the journalist of Est Republicain who came to cover the event.

For spinners in the US and Canada interested in the next francophone retreat, it will be in June 2007 in the Cévennes region of France. It is being organized by Joelle (unfortunately too far to make it to Lorraine this year). Cévennes is lovely and provides hiking opportunities for pack mules. Laurence, who has a farmhouse in the region and spends the summer there, is also promoting it.

Next blog: The Spinners of Mali.

First-Ever Retreat of Francophone Spinners in Lorraine, France - Sept. 8-9

See the photos on Sandrine's blog. With the strong support of her husband, Richard, corsetmaker par excellence, she organized the get-together held in the angora goat farm of Marylene and Alain, folks behind Horizon Mohair.

More photos by Sandrine and Richard here. Florence, who raises sheep in Belgium, blogged about her six-hour drive to France here.

All lined up: me, Midian (Switzerland), Sandrine (France), Amélie (Pouxy's daughter), Carine (Belgium), Muriel (France), Pouxy (France), Laurence (France) and her daughter, Garance. Below: Florence (Belgium) and Agnès (Switzerland).


Materials for swapping.

Flashback: June 2006 - Textile Fair in the Burgundy Region

Flavigny-sur-Ozerain -- you may not think you know this place, but if you've seen the Johnny Depp movie, Chocolat, you do know it. You may also have sucked those tiny anis-flavored dragees in lavander tins that is the other claim to fame of this, otherwise, quiet town.

Last June, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain saw the Weaving and Textile Arts Exposition for the European Market, the second such event with the objective of sensitizing the European public to the textile arts, specifically hand-weaving.

There were only about a dozen merchants/exhibitors and one fleece shearer who wore a t-shirt appropriately marked "Mouton" (Sheep). Laurence Pocztar, whose idea it was to drive to this event, paid the equivalent of a Starbucks triple latte to Monsieur Mouton and he readily sheared a sheep of Laurence's choice and stuffed the fleece into a sack for her to take home.

Along on this car trip was Augusta Uhlenbeck, a Dutch master fiber artist residing in France who weaves magic into the textile she creates on her loom.

Photos from the outing:



Augusta (top) and Laurence (above), hungry after a four-hour drive from Paris. It should have taken us only two hours, but we took to the road without a map and we had to borrow the map of picnickers along the way as we veered away from the direction of Flavigny.



Felting demonstration.


Spinning demonstration.


An old European wheel.


Mr. Macho, err, Monsieur Mouton.


Laurence chooses which sheep to have sheared.



A bag's worth of fleece for the price of a cup of coffee.

Back at the Laine Zinzin studio.




A happy cat on a bed of washed mohair bought all the way from Texas. Laurence has a preference for doing the entire fiber preparation herself, but this Texan mohair was a challenge. The odor just prevaded her studio.


When I got back to Paris it was midnight. Fortunately, this city never sleeps. So it was four-season pizza, a little pitcher of wine and a book on natural dyeing bought from the textile fair to cap the fiber-filled day.


Little Gem2 homeward bound.

AIDS 2006 Toronto: Through the eyes of a craftster

This is the world's largest HIV/AIDS conference. Held every two years, the biennial event held this month in Toronto drew 24,000 attendees, including Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, in addition to the usual motley of scientists, health care providers, political, community and business leaders, journalists, government, non-governmental and intergovernmental representatives, and people living with HIV.

I had been hoping Youssouf, the young Malian M.D., would come so I could hand him some carders for the women of Segou. Instead, he gave me the cell phone number of his boss, the Malian National AIDS Council Executive Secretary, who was roaming the convention center with the Malian Minister of Health. After two brief phone calls about a possible meeting, I gave up the idea of asking two African high officials to carry the carders for me.

Enter Djelika Diallo, a commercial sex worker (CSW) who had flown all the way from Mali to read the story of Danaya So -- the Malian organization of CSWs -- under the auspices of the Montreal-based group called Stella.



The moment I took out the carders, Djelika's eyes lit up. She said in French, "I recognized them instantly because my grandmother had a pair. We don't see new ones like these anymore because they have stopped making them. The only way we can get hold of them is if we find old ones." I requested Djelika to take them back home with her and get them to the women of Segou since Danaya So has a branch there.



The lighter side of a serious international gathering included lessons on making condom pins. This young craftster fashioned for herself what she called a "safety belt".



I lined up to get a free t-shirt hand-painted. It was a looong line. Then I thought, "Why do I have to have someone do the design?" I embellish t-shirts at home all the time. So, I volunteered to paint other people's t-shirts to help shorten the line. Then, when this group of AIDS activist from Peru ran out of t-shirts to give away, I painted my own. The idea was to paint over the silkscreened letters "VIH" (French and Spanish for HIV) and turn it into "VIDA". Of course, I changed mine to "VIE".



Finally, a fashion exhibition. Can you guess what these fabulous clothes are made of? Hint: they're not made of fiber.



Who'd 'ave thunk??? They gave out training on how to put on and take off a condom in the dark.

Marrakesh sights for the fiber fanatic

Natural pigments at herboriste's shop

Dyed yarn


Felted bags


Dyers' market


Dyed fleece


Tannery


Hello Yarn's woolly wallpaper at the AIDS conference in Marrakesh.

A charkha from Maryland to Marrakesh to Mali

A Babe charkha and a Pinkie spinning wheel came with me on a business trip to Marrakesh this month, along with four sets of carders (two for wool and two for cotton) made by Otto Strauch. The tools and equipment were handed over to Youssouf Diallo, a physician from the Mali National AIDS Council, who suggested during our first meeting last month in Nairobi that the women of Segou would be the ideal beneficiaries of my project, "Charkhas for Africa". The city of Segou is known for spinning (with a spindle), dyeing and weaving.

A week before Youssouf came to Marrakesh, he was in Segou and from there, he brought me a woolen blanket and a cotton tapestry (on the sofa behind us) which he said were gifts of frierndship from Segou women.

As I would not be able to travel to Mali this time, Youssouf took the initiative to learn how the equipment worked so he could demonstrate its use back in his country. I must say he took to charkha spinning like fish to water, although he didn't care for the spinning wheel as it required hand-foot coordination.