Wool Fest
Monday, June 25th, 2007Mom and I went to the Lake Farm Parks Wool Fest all day yesterday. (We went all day Saturday, and Friday night, too, and were very bad.) We had such a fun time! The sheep! The wool! The yarn! The bamboo! The silk! You get the idea.
The only thing worse than Mom and I going to a wool festival together is Mom and I going to a wool festival together without Marcus . Marcus, you see, lends a bit of restraint to our wild abandon of spending. Only a bit, but still.
Jamie and Matt from the Wooly Knob were there. Two cooler guys you’ll never meet! I bought some very nice Rambouillet Merino/Black Alpaca/ Rayon fiber from them. Mom is having them process some Alpaca and Jacob and Finn fleeces.

Now, besides being spindle sluts, fiber snob (in my case), and wool “collectors,” Mom and I and are also what is known as enablers.
In the fiber world, an enabler is someone who feels somewhat guilty about how much she (he) is purchasing/ size of stash/ number of projects/ how much time she (he) spends on said projects, so, they convince other people to buy fiber/ increase their stash/ start new projects/ spend every waking hour on those projects in an effort to somehow legitimize their own problem obsession hobby.
We found a new victim fiber enthusiast today in Rebecca Thomas of Waters Edge Jewelry. (She has beautiful stitch markers for knitting and really pretty jewelry. Go buy some. I’ll wait. Go!)
We managed to convince her that she that she had to learn to drop spindle. Had to. That if she didn’t, all the wool in the world would disappear over night or some such disaster. So, she bought a silk cap and a very nice drop spindle and I taught her to spin. Here she is, spinning:

And here is some of her jewelry (I bought lots. I mean, of course I didn’t buy much, Marcus!
):

And here we are at the end of the show today with her. Rebecca is so sweet!

This is a very cute bunny from Millennial Way. Mom and I bought some very fun second-grade white angora bunny fiber for $5 per 6 oz. Actually, we bought all the rest they had.
The girl holding this cute little guy was making a rather good case that he should come home to live with me. She is already quite the salesperson! I did not purchase the bunny, just the fiber! Lyssa (and Marcus) are not quite that tolerant.
In the background is some fun Cotswold locks that I also bought. The excellent salesperson pictured said that she likes to spin it straight from the locks so that is what I am going to try.

Anne’s Fiber Expressions (their shop is in Montello, WI, phone #: 1-608-297-7254) had a booth filled with very cool stuff. I bought over a pound of Black Diamonds fiber, which is charrcoled bamboo, in a lovely gray. It is seems similar to soy silk. I also bought some ingeo fiber which is made from corn. How fun is that!

Maple Creek Farm had beautiful hanks of yarn that were just calling to me, but sadly, my money ran out before my enthusiasm did so I didn’t get to buy any.

And here is Mom, “hoofing it” back to the car after a long, hard weekend of buying fiber. All that shopping is really quite exhausting.








