I just LOVE fiber shopping....

We just returned from Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival. It was our chance to leave the work behind and just go have a good time in upstate New York. Talked with wonderful fiber folks like Maggie Alexander of Maggie's Farm, Bob from Winderwood Farm (look for him on eBay and Etsy) and Jonathan Bosworth who worked his little miracle on my Journey Wheel and with whom we solved the world's problems during a couple of discussions. We also went wine shoppping as we always do when in the region. We picked up a really nice Concord grape wine and a couple of ice wines which I ADORE for sipping after a nice dinner. Saturday night we stopped at the local Tops grocery store, bought some lovely cheese, olives, veggies and a multigrain bagguette to go with the wine. We had quite the picnic in our room, munching Brie/bread/olives, sipping good wine and reading our respective books. It was just the break we both needed.

And now for the good stuff. Some dyed BFL from High Bid Farm (no website but you can find them if you do a search):

The photo just doesn't do it justice, it's much richer than this shows, but what more can you do with the lighting in a motel room?

The always-incredible dyed fiber from Winderwood:

And from Spinners Hill, some combed top and complimentary-colored pouffy fiber (okay, so the technical term is carded cloud, but 'pouffy fiber' sounds exactly like the fiber feels):

I haven't included the fiber I bought this morning, cause there just isn't space for all those photos--once it's spun up I'll do the photography. Trust me, it's luscious! I guess I'm gonna be busy the next couple of weeks. Hopefully most of these will be appearing in the etsy store--except for the Purple Pouffy Fiber, which is mine, Mine, MINE! (I may allow Martha to pet it but, IT'S MINE!)

Many thanks to the Genessee Valley Handspinners Guild who do all the work of organizing this lovely festival.

Waynesburg, PA sheep festival

Yesterday we drove down to Waynesburg for the festival. I'd been wanting to go for several years but something always seemed to pop up and prevent it. This year I was determined to go. At that point Murphy's Law kicked in and within hours someone signed up for my Saturday spinning class. But this is a 2-day festival so not a big deal to miss Saturday. Sunday dawned rainy and cold, but the forecast was for decreasing showers in the afternoon and off we went!

Next time I'll know better. Although the festival was nice, it was evident that several vendors would not be manning their booths the second day. Which did not deter me in the least. I found a lovely project basket at one booth, a couple of good wines at another, and a third booth with the loveliest Rambouillet lamb fleece. Since I spin for a living, I never use raw fleece anymore because I just don't have the time to process it these days. I'd forgotten how lovely it is to stick your hands into a fresh fleece. I want to sit down and handcard this pound of fleece like I used to do in the 70s (except I had to dispose of those handcards because the lanolin ruined them). It brought back memories of sitting in my friend's barn in Chicora on shearing day, spinning up the fresh warm fleece as it came off the ewe. Maybe I'll just tease the locks apart and spin them? Or flick-card and spin? Or (ugh!) wash the locks and drumcard them? It's just such a nice bit of wool....just look at the crimp on those locks!