noontime [fiber] talk

This afternoon, as promised, I headed up to downtown Elkhart to attend the Noontime Lecture of Lisa Gilman. Ms. Gilman is a fiber artist in the greatest sense of the phase. She raised and milled her own alpaca yarns for weaving, knitting, and sale. Her great knowledge of alpaca was wonderful. She gave a gallery full of grandmas and me a great talk.

Her alpaca operation started with one alpaca she was given from her husband as wedding gift. They realized soon that another alpaca was necessary to keep the first one company. Alpaca always have to have companions. In the height of their herd they had thirty. At some point along the way her husband had the idea of buying a fiber processing mill. They put the mill to work, the only one in Indiana, and began processing for people far and wide. She uses her access to the mill to blend her yarns by color or fiber.

She shared with us a variety of fibers and had little samples to touch and compare.

Above are combs to separate and straighten the fibers before spinning.  Also is a Turkish drop spindle with its main feature being that those two blocks at the bottom drop out to allow the ball of yarn to be easily removed.

She showed a sample of her weaving and knitting.  One sweater she shared was comprised one continuous strand of yarn.  The yarn she had blended especially for a certain variegation.  She knit the sweater in the round so that the stripes would be continuous from front to back of the garment.  Normally I am not the biggest fan of variegated yarns but this was beautiful.

These skeins are fabulous!  I picked up the basket of them after the show and the weight mixed with the softness of alpaca was dreamy.

This is her spinning wheel that she used before she had the big milling operation.  I'm drooling a little bit.

Ms. Gilman made these drop spindles.  They are pieces of trim molding that she bought from a home improvement store, dowel rod, and hook all perfectly aligned.  The full spindle on the right has angora on it.

One interesting point she made at the lecture was on the subject of the new "green" fibers such as bamboo.  Though bamboo is easily renewable resource the process and chemicals used to make the fibers are pretty nasty for the environment.  

After the lecture was over and most of the attendees had left we had a chance to chat for a while.  We discussed alpaca and its all around use.  In its originating cultures of South America the animal would be used not only for its wool but also for its meat, hide, and bones.  She often meets great opposition to the idea of eating alpaca that should not be kept for their fur.  At a lecture she gave once the two opposing sides began in a huge debate as she stepped back to allow the discourse.  This discussion lead me back to that conversation I had with Amy in the Arctic about seals.  People wanting to protect seals basically comes from them being cute.  In stating an animal should be given greater value over another because it is cute is a huge moral issue.  If we place value in animals based on their physical appearance what's to say we shouldn't value people solely based on their external appearances and cute people have a right to exist over ugly ones.  [Note my facetiousness, and that I do understand that there are instances of animal cruelty involved that I am overlooking for this broad statement. Stepping off soapbox.]

I asked Ms. Gilman where she learned to weave and she told be about the Sisters of Providence at Saint-Marys-of-the-Woods and the workshops they host.  After a peek at the website those Sisters all just got major girl crushes.  I'm going to cruise their site often waiting for a spinning workshop to show up.

Basically I left as happy as can be from fibering it up all afternoon.  What a great time.  I believe the museum is going to have more fiber artist speak in the next few weeks.  I'm quite excited.