"She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands..."
Laura Ricketts Designs is a personal and business website for Laura Ricketts, hand-knitwear designer, author, teacher, crafter, mother and wife.
These were too precious not to post.
On our way into the Michigan Fiber Festival, Jennie and I saw this sign.
Who in their right mind could pass that up? (Didja catch what was holding down the sign??)
Then, on our way out, I saw this bumper sticker.
Necessary, of course, after the Yarn Sale, and Michigan Fiber Festival's excellent sales area.
On Tuesday I had the great pleasure of receiving a couple copies of Midwestern Knits, a new book that has one of my designs in it! The editors are Allyson Dykhuizen and Carina Spencer. My design is "Michigander Mitts."
My first copies of Midwestern Knits
So lovely to see my work in print!
It is available to purchase both in hard copy or digital version at MidwesternKnits.com, or as a digital version at Ravelry.com. Click the words to open a new page that will take you to those sites.
If you are wanting to hear more -- never fear: I shall be chatting about all the patterns in the book over the next week. In the meantime, here is a video put together by several people involved in the project.
Really honored that they highlights my Michigander Mitts!
Last Thursday, I packed up the little VW and headed to my dear friend Jennie's house. Her darling daughter was home from her summer adventures attending a linguistic school at the University of North Dakota's campus and was zipping through on her way to her last semester of college.
I got to have dinner with them (and Todd, and Claudia). Delicious, home-grown, grass-fed chicken raised by their family. Then, the two of us packed up and headed to Plainwell, Michigan, home to Plainwell Ice Cream. We were prepared for Michigan Fiber Festival the next day.
By golly, look at our back-up singers!
Friday dawned bright and early, and promised to be a warm and sultry August day. A brief shower in the night supplied extra humidity to the great outdoors. I supplied handouts, a slide show and know-how, and my lovely students provided the warmth and enthusiasm I've come to expect with fiber students!
The Skolt Sami Class
By afternoon, the day had heated up so much that I was very glad to be working with cotton, not wool. My Irish Crochet class was super fun. Students brought their own cotton yarn and our roses, leaves and stamens bloomed in a lovely array of color.
Irish roses abloom
I crawled off to the car (thank you Maggie for helping carry the teaching stuff!), and Jennie drove me back to Indiana. Thank you so much, Jennie! Because of my suspect health, I would not have been able to do the drive and teach without you! And, thank you, everyone at Michigan Fiber Festival, the organizers, volunteers, market sellers and students for a great MFF 2015. So glad to have been a part of it!
Time keeps ticking away in this crazy July. It is in the 50s outside and raining almost everyday. Today I had to put on a sweatshirt!
I continue to gain strength, and am so blessed that I have been able to knit all week. I have been working on a series of mittens for an Interweave ebook. The mittens are due in a month, and I have the hardest one yet to complete: 12 sts to the inch in multiple colors. It will be beautiful, but it is a lot of exacting work.
I also had a heartbreaking series of email interchange with a lady in the far north of Norway who took serious offense at my work. It weighs me down to be thought ill of, but I understand it is a frequent event when working with the Sámi, especially since I am working at such a distance. Their personal and collective history is so filled with attacks and robbery from outsiders that a defensive position is the often the first assumed stance.
My answer is good motives, good communication and full disclosure. In all my work, I seek to give back to the communities from which I have learned so much. I know full well from living in other countries that intercultural communication can be fraught with difficulties and, as a result, takes time and commitment. So, I keep working to get there... In the in-between, weeks highlight the gracious Sámi I have worked with. They are such a joy to my heart! I truly rejoice in the beautiful artists and their artistry, which I see daily in colorful mittens, dazzling jewelry and stunning carving work.
In other news, I have had some great conversations with people in Minnesota about coming out to teach. One group is at North House Folk School in Grand Marais. They are built on a Danish model of Folk Schools, stressing the building of community among the students and artisans. North House has been around since 1997, and starting about five years ago they began a more concentrated Fiber weekend in February. Next February, I'll journey out and join them for a long weekend. I'm really looking forward to it!