Monday, June 27, 2011

Midwest Fiber Fest

I did knit on Thursday, after our outing, and completed a "lace sampler" from my Knitting for Dummies book, but I will show you that work tomorrow. On Friday, my friend Moonsilk Stitches and I went to the Midwest Fiber Festival along with a couple of hundred of our closest friends.

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The festival was held at the Dupage County Fairgrounds, and it was a very nice venue. The building was air-conditioned, although with the weather on Friday, they were considering turning on the heat. Anyhow, there was room for demonstrations, for classroms, all the shops and for musicians. These gentlemen were sitting off to the side, playing their music, and most of the day there was a harpist perfuming the air with her music as well (sorry, no picture!).

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The first thing I saw when we got through the door was this lady demonstrating spinning with a spindle. They had a couple of demonstration spindles set up for people to try, and I tried... without a whole lot of success, but with an urge to try more.

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I was able to pick up a small spindle and some roving (and a book!) to try once I got home.

The shopping was a lot of fun. There were raw fleeces, and angora rabbits for sale, and for petting, and felt, and roving, and yarn, and combed tops, and some pottery, and some dyed fabric, and all of it was very interesting. The show was a very nice size as well; I got through most of the booths by lunch-time.

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Lunch was outside... and I don't know if you can tell, but it was a little cool. I was wishing for a little more jacket than I had. The food was very good. There was a Polish food stand with perogis and blinzes, sausage and kabobs (which is what I had) and an Amish food stand with bbq pork and pulled pork, and etc. It was real food!

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There was more real music too. This was acoustic, even though it was amplified afterwards. With my hearing the way it is, I was not able to listen to the lunch conversation because of the music... but I did enjoy it.

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Yesterday I tried out my new spindle, and this is the result:

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I spun this cop all by myself! I actually made thread! It is not done yet, I have to make this much again, and then join the two plies together. Then I have to put it into a skein, and then wash it before it becomes yarn you can work with. I have discovered this spindle is too small for the thickness of the yarn I made, but it worked! I don't know if I will have enough yarn to make anything from this. I did pick up some roving in a very nice denim color, and I have a plan to make a mobius scarf from that.

I am really enjoying learning something new! There is a whole bunch of new vocabulary to learn, and then the muscle memory with the hands so it keeps things interesting.

On our way home from the festival we shopped at Village Needleworks (I picked up some temari threads) and Whole Food. We just had a wonderful day!

2 comments:

Lelia said...

Yes, it looks like fun! Hope you bring it on Tuesday - it looks so interesting!

Lace-lovin' Librarian ~ Diane said...

Hi! I found your blog through Lelia at Stitches of Life II. I also attended the fiber best, but not until Sunday. I had a great time, and I was surprised at how well I was able to control myself!

Happy spinning!