My friend J and I set out for towards the siren call of the Great Lakes Fiber fest in Wooster, OH yesterday.
I was resolute- I would not break the yarn diet for this festival. I would only buy unique stuff- and I was looking for a spindle to spin lace-weight on.
As we hummed along in J's Prius, I counted all the Amish in their buggies that we passed along the way, and J remarked on the flowers and trees that were in bloom. We passed conventional farmers in tractors plowing fields, Amish with draft horses plowing fields, and in one instance, saw a German shepard happily chasing birds away from his field.
It was a bright sunny day, and clothing floated on the clotheslines next to the farmhouses that we passed, and the grass was green and the birds were chirping. The fact that I live in farm country is still often shocking for this city girl, but I thought that I better soak it up before I leave for the heat, scrub, and flying roaches and Texas.
So we found our way to the Wayne County fairgrounds and pulled in.
Wandered our ways through the barns where we were greeted by this:
And these cute guys:
They were freshly shorn as you might have noticed.... and this little guy, who apparently did not like having his pictures taken.
J and I wandered four barns full of vendors, and we were overwhelmed. So much stuff- so much fiber and yarn, so much craziness!!!!! We did our first walk-through and then went back looking for what we thought we might want. Then we took a break and watched some of the sheep showing.
Then we went back and scored more stuff.
After a few hours, it started to get unbearably hot. I think we were both wilting from heat and being overwhelmed so we had lunch at a cute bistro in Wooster, and drove back, passing through rolling hills, and farmland.
When I got home and unloaded my stuff and looked at it all, I was amazed at how much I had bought- it didn't seem like that much when I carried it to the car!
Two four ounce bags of natural alpaca roving, 1 bag of hot pink silk/wool roving. Three slivers of sea silk roving, one Brittney crochet hook, four little bags of dyed silk hankies, and one skein of tussah silk. I also got one large handmade yarn container (and out of work tailor was selling them and they were super inexpensive and nice- I kinda wish I had gotten a second one) and one teeny sock yarn container- the green one with the bugs fabric.
The fiber was all reasonably priced, and the sea silk is shimmery and soft and just lovely. But my big coup was this:
A handmade roving basket with a spindle carrying slot and a teeny- tiny Greensleeves spindle- it only weighs .3 ounces an it is perfect for spinning the fussy seasilk with.
Look how tiny this is- here is my "hearts" spindle- a regular sized (I think 1.7 ounce) production spindle, next to my itty bitty greensleves spindle.
And look at that yummy, shimmery seasilk- I am still trying to figure out how to spin it, but my little spindle seems to like to spin it very fast and very fine. (Like thread- I will have to ply it even to get lace-weight yarn.)
Notice- I did not break my yarn diet. Yup. Despite the haul, I brought home no yarn. Now, I have loads of spindle spinning to do.
