Ye Olde Fibre Festival

This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive. --Alice Waters

I've been yearning for the company of other makers for a while now. I've managed to go to a workshop here and there, but those sorts of events are still somewhat slow to appear in my local social calendar. I've been trying hard to keep myself immersed in my own projects while watching carefully for opportunities to commune with others.

There was an event that has been sitting on my radar for the past few months after being canceled for the past two years: The Cobble Hill Fleece and Fibre Festival. I would say it's the largest festival in my region and it attracts a lot of very notable local sellers. I was hoping and praying that it would come to be after two years of disappointment. 

As it approached, I realized that I didn't really have anyone else to go with. I mean, I have NO business going anywhere to buy more stuff, but I really just wanted to walk into that world and be there... but I wasn't sure I wanted to go alone.

Cue serendipity.

A couple of days before the event, a bumped into the lady who sold me my spinning wheel and who taught me how to use it. I asked her if she was going, and she herself shrugged her shoulders and wasn't really sure. I told her I wasn't sure either. We chatted a bit more about what we were currently working on, and then we parted ways.

The day before the event, she emailed me and told me she had been up until 3am watching YouTube videos about a new spinning technique and decided she should go and asked me if I wanted to go with her.

I was overjoyed.

And so we went:

It's always hard to take photos of this event because it's in October and it's mostly indoors, but believe me when I say that there were absolutely loads of vendors, both indoors and out, and they all looked very happy to be there. This was a new venue for the event, so we enjoyed wandering on the different floors of the buildings as well as through the tents outside in the cool October sunshine.

I was elated. It felt so GOOD to be there.

And well, I ended up with some goodies, like this merino tussah silk combed top. I can't wait to see how it spins up:

I try not to buy commercially produced yarns at these events, but I couldn't walk away from this wee trio of yarn. It's made from sugar cane, for heaven's sake. I am going to see if it will make a nice, comfy cowl:

And since I started making socks this year, why not try some in bamboo?

I also picked up some "staples" like this stash of fine cotton yarn. It's always handy to have, and I think it will be useful for some of the weaving I would like to attempt in the near(ish) future. At $7 a bag, how could I pass it up?

I also bought these stitch markers, as my current stash of markers has been slowly dwindling as they get lost inside chairs or bags or in airports or cars. I figured now was the right time to replenish. And I mean, how cute are these??

This event is also a big destash place for one of the local spinning and weaving guilds. I wish I'd remembered they were going to be there because I would have taken better stock of the supplies for my loom and tried to get a bargain. As it was, I picked up a "pick up" stick, as well as this used bottom-whorl drop spindle. I got both of them for a grand total of $3. I'm kinda glad the stock was kinda low at that stage, otherwise I probably would have loaded up on waaaay too much stuff:

So I've been floating on that high for a while, as well as the arrangement of meeting up with the lady I went to the festival with on a regular basis for spinning. I am very much looking forward to a new, real-life fibre friend. It's been too long.

In the meantime, I've been making slow but steady progress on my current sweater project, but it's not really that photographable at the moment. Suffice it to say that I am currently in a tangle of different balls of yarn and quite possibly at the start of a massive yarn chicken event. We'll see how it all goes.

But I have had my hands busy for other reasons. Today, I sat down and did some painting and drawing for a sympathy card for Grandpa Don's wife and family. This is just a simple card made with a watercolour wash and some ink:

I also took the opportunity to try out a wee craft that I've been looking at in one of my Taproot magazines. I thought it would be nice for her to have something to hang in her house, on a Christmas tree or whatever. It was a sweet little bird that I hand-stitched from some felt in my fabric box:

It's funny how something so small can take so long to make, but maybe that's the point. It's important sometimes to slow down and focus on the small details, especially when they're for important reasons:

I'm off to go settle myself down to work on my sweater. I'm hoping I'll have something worthwhile to show you in my next post. Have a great week!