I have been greatly remiss in that I realized I had not yet blogged about the fiber festival I attended back in April. Oops! Well, since it was certainly a wonderful gift to be able to attend, I’d like to share it with you too. (Note, if you don’t like fiber or knitting, you’ll find the post less than enrapturing). This was the third year that I’ve attended. It was notably remarkable in that it did not flood or ice this year as it had on year 1 and 2, respectively. We had beautiful weather – sunny and in the 70s and nobody was more thrilled about that than the outside vendors. It was held on my birthday so I took vacation day from work and my mom and I embarked on a fiber adventure at the Putnam County Fairgrounds. There’s three pavilions filled with vendors, also tables set up outside and in addition to the two days of shopping, there are workshops and classes both days.
My favorite vendors were there, along with some new faces and new yarns. I did have a “God-moment” at the show. I had only 1 item on my “must-needs buy” list – it was another skein of sage green yarn from a vendor where I had bought 2 skeins last year and made a hood. The hood is beautiful, but I ran out of yarn and ordered a 3rd skein, which was slightly darker than the original two and looked pretty obvious. I needed to find a skein that better matched the hood and this would be a challenge because the vendor didn’t have dye lots. Well, I visited their booth first – close to opening – and after searching through the crowded booth, I found one skein left in the sage green color – one! And miracle of miracles, it appeared to match my hood! I was elated! So I have a new skein with which to finish my beautiful hood. Yay!
It’s always a toss-up whether I find the yarn or the knitted samples more inspiring. This handspun yarn was gorgeous but a bit out of my price range – ok it was a lot out of my price range, but it’s free to take pictures and dream.
This booth (Fiberoptic) is always one of my favorites because they have a large wall full of knitted shawls. It makes you want to knit every single one. Here’s a section of some of the samples.
And here’s a wall of hand-dyed yarns from another great local company, A Good Yarn.
It was so fun to spend the day looking at beautiful yarns. Over 40 vendors were there selling their handspun and hand-dyed yarns. All of the participants are local, small-business owners and it’s wonderful to support these artisans who create works of art in each skein. Now… for the little lovelies that came home with me.
These were the first skeins I purchased and quite frankly, they still are my favorites. From the company, Yarn Daze, these soft wool skeins have generous yardage and amazing color. I don’t think the picture captures it quite well, but these skeins practically glow. It is amazing. I bought three skeins (left to right) – red, brownish-red, and green/brown. I can’t decide whether to make three separate items with each skein or if I should make one large project with all three colors together since they have a nice gradient effect.
These skeins are from Robin J Edmundson, who is a favorite vendor of mine. She keeps a blog, Rurification, which I enjoy reading as well. I bought a couple skeins of cotton/rayon in a nubbly yarn which are perfect for summer-weight mesh scarfs. One of the charming things about Robin is that she names her yarn lines after birds. These are of the Nuthatch line.
Also from Robin, I scored this mega skein of 100% silk. At a whopping 2500 yards, this was the best bargain I found, at the bottom of a tub of yarn. Color on this one is amazing too – pale lavenders drift in soft fawn brown and grassy green before meandering in warmer tones of orange and yellow. No idea what this will be yet – with that kind of yardage it could be a bedspread.
I hope you enjoyed the brief tour. It was almost a month ago, but still feels just like yesterday. I can still smell the wool and when I close my eyes, all those amazing textures and colors of yarn still tantalize the imagination. Well, I have to go knit now. See you tomorrow.
Blessings to you,
Sarah
anordinarymiracleday 