A Short-Long Journey to the Fibre Festival

The greatness of a culture can be found in its festivals. -- Siddharth Katragadda

I like to believe that I have a pretty good sense of direction. When I'm trying to find my way from one place to another, I can usually orient myself instinctually and know that the place I'm looking for is "somewhere in that direction," and I'm usually pretty close. And yet, my knowledge of local geography can be oddly skewed.

I have this weird concept of Vancouver Island. I feel like anything north of me is SO FAR AWAY, and that everything south of my little town is quite close and easy to get to. One of my friends invited me to go to the 100 Mile Fleece and Fibre Festival in Coombs this weekend. We were staying just outside of Parksville, which is in reality closer to me than Victoria, but is a place I rarely go because my brain keeps thinking I have to circumnavigate the globe to get to it. I packed like I was going on a six-hour journey, and then, 45 minutes later, we were right next to Rathtrevor beach near our resort:

We had a nice walk after lunch and found some neat little pockets of nature:

Complete with their own residents:

But of course, the real reason for going was to go and embed ourselves in the midst of all this:

We had an interesting discussion earlier that morning where we talked about how we had evolved as crafters. I find myself not hankering over more vast quantities of yarn to add to my already enormous stash, but really looking for skeins and colours that really speak to me. And I find myself recently just experimenting with stitches and textures rather than working with patterns. I'm not sure why this has happened: maybe it's a maturity thing, or maybe it's just having enough experience to know how to make the best use of what I already have.

Or maybe life really is just about swings and roundabouts, changes all the time.

I wasn't really planning on buying anything, but it didn't take long to be seduced by the lovelies that surrounded me. I felt a bit guilty about it since we're moving soon and I'm supposed to be purging, but I mean, what's a couple of skeins of gorgeous 50/50 merino-silk fingering weight yarn in the grand scheme of things?

And well, while we're at it, what about some handspun alpaca blend yarn? I don't normally purchase handspun, but these were just so pretty and spring-like, how could I resist?

And what about a new tool, like this lucet made from reclaimed oak? I've been avoiding making i-cords like the plague, but I think I'd enjoy making cords with this handy thingy:

And well, if someone's going to put a beautiful hand-thrown mug in front of me, it's almost pointless to resist. I'm really looking forward to gazing at this beauty as I sip my tea and coffee:

Meanwhile, in my own project world, I've been working on an experiment with textures and different media, and decided to finally do something with a ball of Habu Textiles art yarn:

Except I left it on the coffee table and someone mistook it for a new toy:

But apparently he's really, really sorry:

It's a good thing he's cute. And well, he's got pretty good taste. He also enjoys merino and cashmere yarn balls, in case you're wondering.

I'm home now after my supposed circumnavigation of the Island, and I think I'm going to go and enjoy the last of the light of the evening before I go and make myself a cup of tea in my new mug and try to untangle my art yarn. Have a great week!