Fun in the Studio

Today the women I knit with met at Judi's shortly after her movers started to work bringing the boxes of books, supplies, equipment and tools she'd had stored in her garage while the basement of her new house was being finished. Much of the tools of Judi's trade had been in bins and boxes since she moved to this area more than 4 years ago.  I got there early, when the studio space was still largely empty and waiting for the fluff and stuff.

Judi is a professional grade fiber artist - spinning, weaving, dyeing, knitting, paper-making - you name it, it seems like Judi has at least dabbled in it -- mostly she's seriously talented and very knowledgeable. Here are two of her larger looms - the one on the right obviously needs assembly, but I thought my friend Diane might like to see it.

This photo was probably taken less than an hour later - but there was a lot more to come.  Judi had several of the white bookcases we mostly filled later in the morning. She has as area she calls "the Kitchen" around to the left in front of the mover, and a large storage area where she had a lot more tools and equipment for her art. The Kitchen has a sink and refrigerator, and cabinets where she'll keep her equipment for dying.

Knitter/spinner Cindy's husband Larry went to work assembling the open shelves you can see in the back corner of the room behind where I was standing for the last photo. 

After lunch, we filled the metal shelves with some of the stuff in the boxes. It's like being a kid in a candy store, looking at all the color and texture! I put the display of rug yarns on the shelving together while Susie and Cindy opened the boxes of coned yarns and organized them by color.

That's Judi on the step stool, looking at some specialty fibers stacked on a set of shelves like those against the wall on the left.  She has a lot of work to do, organizing the knitting yarns on the metal shelves far left, and fabrics we piled on the two shelves lower right right after I took this photo. We got most of the books out of boxes and on bookshelves, and helped pile boxes here and there in some semblance of organization. Judi has lots of "unprocessed fiber" in bags in the storage area, along with office supplies and more books.

Judi and her husband made us lunch for our labors, and I'm going to be pleased if Judi lets me come and play in her studio as a guinea pig for classes or just experiments and challenges.