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At last I am in Cromwell for the Creative Fibre Festival! The town is booked full and I find a motel room 35km away in Alexandra. "Only 35 mins away," they assure me, but that doesn't take slow trucks and fog into consideration. I want to be on time my first morning, so I leave the motel at 8am for my 9am class. The back window of my rental car is thick with water - I think - so I go back inside for a handful of tissue to wipe a clear space. Ack!! It's ICE! Needless to say, the tissue does nothing but shred all over the top of the ice. Oh, well, no worries, the car has a rear window defroster. If only it had worked... But I make it to Cromwell in plenty of time for the class - I am the first there after instructor Anne Field. The room is very cold and even I find it necessary to wear my jacket. (No doubt Cherrie is laughing at this admission!) Soon the room fills up with other eager weavers, most lugging wonderful large table looms. I should have taken some pix of the looms! Several of the ladies had lovely large rigid heddle looms, but only one was a familiar Ashford. Anne calls us into a circle and explains the major points of weaving with fleece. Then she moves to a nearby loom and demonstrates the finer points of "twiddling" the ends. :) We are to weave 4 picks with fleece, then 2 with rug wool and beat firmly. Off we go! Not being shy with new techniques, I dive right in, weaving lovely huge gobs of wool with all the ends and tips escaping the warp. Wonderful! I have my first experience with a rug beater and think it would be a fine addition to my tool collection. But Anne says they aren't making the good ones any more - they really need to be filled with lead. One lady across the way has brought a riot of colored wool and as I am waiting for my turn with the beater I walk over to view her efforts. What lovely colors she has brought! No sooner are the words out of my mouth than she is stuffing wool into my hands. Wow, I think, now I can have a rug that is more than plain old white. I am about 1/2 thru my kilo of white wool, so I put in a pick of bright yellow, then a sedate pick of blue, and then the brightest orange I have ever seen. Not happy with the row of wool in the rug, I tie some knots and allow the ends to wave gaily above the surface of the mat. After lunch we complete our weaving and learn to finish the ends with the Damascus edging. We all take our mats outside for a photo opportunity. See next page for photos of the mats and my classmates. The photos below were taken Tuesday morning on the road from Alexandra to Cromwell. This is Cromwell from the highway. It's a lovely town and, like a lot of towns I've seen, quite picturesque. Tuesday morning, I have no classes, so I head on over to "the trades," the market. A quick cruise thru tells me that I had better find a seller who is willing to mail my purchase to the US cuz I cant fit any of this wonderful stuff into my already bulging bags. :) Lucky me - the owner of Touch Yarns assures me that she sends "lots" of yarn to the US. I purchase some lovely wool boucle and brushed mohair and ask her to mail it for me. "No worries," and it's on its way to me at home. I lusted mightily after a merino/possum/silk blend from Rotocard, but only a sample bit is left - the rest has all been sold. Off I go to the Visitor Info Centre in Cromwell to book my horse trekking for Wednesday. I have some time before I have to catch the bus for the afternoon tour to Maniototo, so I also book my Weds evening stay. I ask advice about Thursday's drive up the West Coast and decide I'll book a room while I'm in Wanaka. Our bus tour covered a lot of miles - sorry, kilometers - and took over 5 hours. The tour was so overbooked that they had to call another bus and driver to handle the overflow. I was on the smaller bus and had a delightful time chatting with ladies from Ashburton and elsewhere. The Interweave Press tour has overlapped with my own tour here in Cromwell, so there are many Americans in town besides me. Americans from Colorado and Los Angeles (lately moved from the Midwest) were on my bus. We saw lots and lots of sheep, lots of deer, lots of cattle and even a few ostriches. Our driver was new to the area, so he was not able to provide much commentary about the trip. Mostly we chatted and looked out the windows. Most shops here close up at 4:30 or 5:00pm, so I'm back to Alexandra too late to eat out. New World (the supermarket) has plenty of neat bacon and egg and mince pies. Since my room has a full kitchen, complete with microwave, I pick up a couple of pies and a liter of milk and I'm all set for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast.
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