On Saturday at 11 p.m. (yes, that's at night), UNC-TV will air "Knitting Lessons" as part of its North Carolina Visions program. The 10-minute documentary film by Mary Dalton focuses on Mary Stowe — "the 'Yarn Queen' ... store owner (of yarns etc.../ Great Yarns), pattern designer, sales rep, and accomplished speed knitter." If you can't be with the knitters you love at that hour, DVR it to watch at your next gathering. Knit on!

Look at that bunny! Oh, yes, it is just as soft as it looks. Wimi met the bunny at the Averasboro Fiber Festival last month, as he moved from one home to another. His first home is Hollow Oak Farm in Parkton outside Fayetteville. Meg and Christ Zets specialize in angora bunnies and handspinner's sheep. He (possibly she -- so hard to tell at this point) is heading to a new home at Heelside Farms, where that soft, soft fur will be combined with Border Leicester, alpaca and silk for a spinnable roving that made longtime spinner Nancy Shroyer swoon (really, I saw it!) And who's responsible for that dreamy recipe?

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Sara-Anne Caudle of Wendell created this page using a picture of her daughter at the beach -- and it won the HSN Make it Memorable Scrapbooking Contest! Caudle writes, "It's one of my favorite pictures of all time. I felt that it captured those first moments of seeing the beach that summer. I wanted to use a Shabby Chic' feel for the layout. I used lots of white paint .. and made my own flowers using lace." The untold story is that Caudle's daughter had lost her grandmother and great-grandmother in a fatal car crash just days before. It is, as you scrapbookers know, the journaling that enriches a page, telling the story that converses with the picture. The old-fashioned lace frames the child, like the ghost of her foremothers embracing her as she looks to the future. She does not walk alone, and even in bliss, her life is informed by both sadness and the possibilities in life.
Caudle's entry was one of 1,700 scrapbooking projects entered by hsn.com users. See other winning pages here.

Local bead artist Kathy King will have a reception from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Ornamentea in Raleigh, where her work will be on display and for sale. "The signature component of my work is the beaded bead, where I weave small beads together to form a larger, more intricate bead," King writes in her artist statement. King's bead quilling technique is featured on the cover of the current http://www.beadandbutton.com/BNB/Default.aspx?c=i&issue=103&current=true&id=149">Bead & Button magazine. In bead quilling, King explains, "the holes of the beads are exposed rather than the sides, which makes the thread a more integral part of the overall design. The flat, distinctive look of bead quilling results in unusual designs that can not be achieved through traditional beading techniques." She is also a finalist in the mag's national beading competition, Bead Dreams. Great Grapes will serve refreshments at the reception, which is free and open to the public.
Kathy King's Royal Tiered Necklace

If you're setting up your Saturday fun, here are two crafty options:
Apex is going to the streets with its 28th annual Peakfest from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition to craft vendors (natch), there will be music, belly dancing, a balloon man and roaming mascots (roaming mascots?).
In Raleigh, the Handmaidens are holding their fifth Handmade Market. More than 50 vendors will gather at Vintage 21 in the warehouse district in downtown Raleigh. Find presents for Moms, graduates and newlyweds — and yourself, of course. Note that there are several street closures in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, so check the Handmade Web site for the best route and suggested parking.

In today's Notions column, Wimi caught up with a gaggle of lacers, members of the Sir Walter's Lacers guild.
She was totally smitten with the lace, the bobbins, the beads -- all of it. Here she poses with a posey made by Kristin Conrad. The lacers are meeting today at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at N.C. State for the semiannual gathering of the North Carolina Regional Lacers. Head on over and learn a thing or two about lacing. The focus here is on bobbin lace, but to see a picture of a bit of knitted lace made by one of the lacers, Rhoda Stein, go to our new online needlework gallery. Here you are invited to post pictures of your own heirloom lace -- made by you or inherited. Let us know a bit about the piece, too -- we love to know the story of the needlework! To see a few more pictures of bobbin lace and to see the dangerously stunning side effects of bead addiction, click more.

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Whaddya think of that? Something from Suess? Silverstein? Mars? No, it's a freshly sheared alpaca, showing off its annual "Rod Stewart 'do" as one observer noted. This fine alpaca, Prissy Girl, was brought to the Averasboro Fiber Arts Festival by Cathy Knight of Kipling Pines Alpacas. Here's what Cathy taught us about alpacas: They have soft padded feet -- more like a dog than a horse -- and a cartoonish two toes. They have teeth on the bottom and a hard palate on top -- the better to eat grass, hay and a special alpaca grain mix, which then travels through three stomachs. Their fleece is super soft -- some call it the poor knitter's cashmere -- and feels like a cloud (this we learned by pushing our hands into the fleece of Bart, whose picture you can see if you click More). Under all that fluff, an adult alpaca weighs about 70 pounds.
We know an animal that digests food faster than the alpaca: A Quick-Digesting Gink, found in Uncle Shelby's Zoo as described in Don't Bump the Glump by Shel Silverstein. We love this book! It first came out in 1964 -- his first book of poetry and the only one with color critters -- and as far as we knew, we owned the only copy in the world. But now it's back in print! And to Shel-ebrate, we'll be reading from it at the Barnes & Noble in Cary at 7 p.m. tonight. See you there -- unless the Slithergadee gets you!

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We're taking a break from the fiber festival so you can celebrate Earth Day by marking your calendar to go to Ornamentea on April 30 to make this great Earthen Necklace, centered on a ceramic toggle made by local artist Elaine Ray. And if you have a bit of time today, drop by Panopolie for Try-It Tuesday, where you can make a Dainty Drop Pendant for just $2 (and all craft wire is 20% off).

At the Averasboro Fiber Festival, we saw a sheep go from fluffy to skinny in 8 minutes. Doncha just wish it happened that way with us? (well, except for Wimi, who's quite pleased with her figure, thankyouverymuch). The shearer, Dave Sweeney of Raleigh, has been doing this job for a couple of decades now. Sweeney hails from Boston, where he first got interested in the organic food movement, he said. When he moved to Raleigh, he looked into getting some sheep and, at one point, had five flocks in various locations where sheep are allowed. Development has absorbed all but one of those locations, where he now has about 16 sheep and a couple of guard donkeys (donkeys apparently bray like mad when dogs and coyotes come near). Sweeney let us in on a few shearing secrets.

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At the second annual Averasboro Fiber Arts Festival! More than 2,500 people came to this young fiber festival, including Yarndemon . While, we were there, Joe took a spin with a new sport: turning fluff to fiber. His teacher was Nancy Shroyer, who was one of my teachers while working on the Homespun series (this multimedia series follows fleece from the sheep to the finished product. If you haven't seen it, go ahead and check it out! When you get there, click on "link", then "Crafters at Work".) Truth is, Nancy talked me down when I was pretty sure that I would never, ever learn to learn to spin with a drop spindle -- I was doing way more dropping than spinning. The secret, she told me, is to twist, twist, twist. You can't put too much twist in it, because whatever twist doesn't go into the yarn, you can release. But if you don't have enough twist, the fluff won't hold together (this makes a lot more sense if you actually get a drop spindle and some fluff to play with). It took me days and days of practice, but I finally got it.
Joe, he got it in minutes. Really, he's a whiz.

Nancy coaches Joe as Hana looks on.

Just the ticket for converting those dust bunnies around the house into something useful.
(Stay tuned over the next few days to meet some friends that Wimi found at the fiber festival.)

In the basement of the Regulator in Durham, with Michael Chitwood, who read from two of his collections of poetry: From Whence and Spill. Wimi was quite taken with Chitwood's fondness for wisteria. Our outdoor guy, Joe Miller, was more taken with Chitwood's fondness for all things natural -- except, perhaps, squirrels.

I have a couple of books looking for a home.
The first is a readerly sort of book: A Page Out of Life: A scrapbooking novel by Kathleen Reid. A scrapbooking club made up of women of various ages keeps itself glued together while artfully arranging one another's lives.
A book of a different sort: Learn a variety of beading techniques with Interweave's wonderfully illustrated simply modern jewelry by Danielle Fox, editor of Stringing magazine. These 30 projects are clearly detailed, allowing you to build on basic skills to make simply stunning designs, from necklaces to bracelets to rings. You'll be able to apply the skills to your own designs, so the book will have a long life on your crafting shelf.
Send me an comment and I'll send you a book. Then you can send me pictures of your crafty designs!

For a woolly great time this Saturday, head to the 2nd Annual Averasboro Fiber Festival at Averasboro Battlefield Museum. Events include spinning, knitting and weaving demonstrations; sheep shearing; gospel music and, of course, the living history at the battlefield. Parking is $5; no admission charge. Vendors will have all things fibery -- wool roving and yarn, alpaca roving and yarn, and a few non-fiber things like cheese and soap to keep fiber folks fed and smelling good. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, rain or shine. 3300 NC Highway 82 South of Dunn/Erwin and North of Godwin.

Lounging on a work-in-progress on a 300-year-old loom at Halle Cultural Arts Center in Apex. The work is a Community Weaving that commemorates Apex, the Peak of Good Weaving, er, Living. The weaver, Victoria H. Sowers of Sandy Creek Weavers, travels to schools and community centers across the state with her loom -- which is pegged and can be assembled in about 8 minutes with a team of helpers, Victoria says -- and weaves together artworks from community artifacts. (And a bit of empathy for Victoria, please. Usually the warp -- the many strings on the loom that the new material is woven through -- is already in place, threaded through two eyes. She ties on new string and hops to business. However, for some reason, every one of her knots broke. So she had to rethread all of the warp strings before she could get going. Whew!) To see the bundle of artifacts and the work in progress, click more.

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We alerted you to Randy Shull's show at the Gregg Museum back in January. Shull will be in Raleigh tomorrow, along with Matthew Hebert, for a demonstration and discussion at 10:30 a.m. at Evan Lightner's Studio at 501 Pershing Rd (near Five Points). Call 513-7244 for more information. btw, Shull's exhibit at the Gregg is up through May 11.

After the talk, you can head to Pittsboro for Crafts on the Lawn: A Show for Local Artisans at Chatham Mills. The event, which runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., features crafts by area wood workers, jewelers, glass artists, metal workers & more.