Keynote Address and Banquet

Please join us at 7:00 pm in the Poolside Pavilion for our banquet dinner and keynote address by Carol James.

Carol has always been interested in playing with strings, and often found herself outside the normal box. She has followed a long, circuitous route to identify her many talents. Trial and error experiences have helped her to figure out good uses for her odd talents.

Her curiosity for structures led her to something that looks a lot like research, and has taken her to unusual places. She has examined pieces such as the Arizona Openwork shirt, George Washington’s sash, and bonnets on Egyptian mummies. Work with these historic pieces sometimes stretched her way beyond her comfort level, but definitely helped her to perfect her technique.

Recreating historic pieces, she has been amazed by the ‘hand’ of the fabric, and is convinced this technique is perfect for modern garments. Needing to make the point that sprang can be used for much more than hairnets and bags, she challenged herself to create a range of modern garments. These garments have not always been accepted by fashion show jurors.

Wanting to make these techniques more accessible, she began to share information gleaned, and her students taught her to teach. Follow her path of discovery through better known techniques such as knitting and crochet, and on through to lesser known techniques of finger-weaving and sprang. How did she come upon these methods, and what is sprang anyhow?