Fiber festivals

In spite of the dire warnings about Hurricane Earl, the weather’s turned out to be lovely this weekend. The hurricane changed course and left us with clear, cool, breezy days that feel like fall.

The term “holiday” is used loosely here.  We don’t have holidays from taking care of our animals. Long weekends and nice weather usually mean more tourists and farm visitors. It keeps us busy!

Our first fiber festival of the season, Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival, is coming up soon, so one of my projects this week is to wash, skein and dye yarn. I’ll start with sock yarn. And I still have a lot of fiber to skirt and send to the mill. It’s not easy to find the time to get everything done!

Looks like tomorrow will be a good day for the start of the Washington County Fiber Tour. Fiber enthusiasts should venture to NY and join our alpaca and fiber friends for this fun event.

I’m back from a great fiber weekend in Freeport, ME at Spa, Spin & Knit. Depsite heavy, wet snow, high winds, power outages and such, many fiber enthusiasts made the trek.  We arrived in Freeport at noon on Friday to almost 50 degrees and sunny – that was quite a change from the weather driving through the White Mts!

It was a good weekend for selling lots of yarn and fiber, talking to old friends and customers and meeting new ones! Now it’s back to work – unpacking first, then taking inventory to see where I have to restock.  I have plenty of yarn on hand to wind, wash and dye more skeins.  And lots more fiber in the barn that needs to be skirted before we start to shear again next month.

Well, it is still only February, despite the mild, dry weather we’ve had over the last few weeks.  This is the one week that I have to travel – to Freeport for Spa – and snow is forecast for the rest of the week!  It’s gonna be a long ride through the mountains.

I’ve been busy winding skeins, dyeing yarn, printing patterns, etc and will be packing up and heading out Thurs. For those of you not familiar with Spa, it’s a “free-form” weekend of spinning, knitting, eating, drinking, shopping…..well, whatever you want to do in Freeport.  There’s a big vendor room and I’ll be there selling alpaca yarn all weekend. Hope to see some of you there!

Our next fiber gathering will be Feb 26-28 at Spa, Knit & Spin in Freeport, ME.  I’m busy winding skeins and washing sock yarn and hope to have time to do a bit more dyeing. I’ve ordered the needles that have sold out and put in a large order for Greener Shades dyes yesterday. Now I just need to have the weather cooperate for the drive to Maine.

The forecast here is for snow today, but we have clear blue skies at the moment, so I’m not convinced. It’s been a dry winter and, at this point, I’m ready for spring!

The Holiday Fiber Festival in White River Junction last weekend was a great success!  Many thanks to Lois Miller of White River Yarns for picking this up at the last minute and making it happen. Look for this festival to happen again in 2010.  It’s an event with a little something for everyone – space to sit and work or chat with new and old fiber friends, vendors with fiber and other goodies, yarn tasting, workshops and a great spinning room on Saturday filled with wheels for you to try and spinners to help you get started.

Next weekend I’m headed to the 5th Annual Southern Vermont Fiber Festival in Brattleboro. This is a one-day event, so don’t miss it!

I’m packing up this morning and heading to White River Junction for the Holiday Fiber Festival. This should be a fun three days of all things fiber.  There will be vendors, workshops, a spinning room, games, snacks, room to sit and visit while you work on your fiber project.  Free admission.  Join us!

The festival was held in Rhinebeck, NY last weekend.  The weather was a bit cold and it showered on and off most of Sunday. But you can’t discourage serious fiber fanatics from their mission.  The crowds were great and we sold a lot of alpaca yarn and roving.

If you’re a fiber enthusiast and haven’t yet made it to a sheep & wool festival, you really owe it to yourself to make a visit. Most states in the northeast have a festival.  Some are in spring and some are in fall.  All offer fiber from the farm and an overall great experience.

We had a nice group of alpaca owners here yesterday for a fiber skirting workshop.  Now that I’ve reorganized the fiber barn, I need to spend time out there and finish this year’s skirting.  We’ll be shearing again before we know it and there’s be no room for fiber if I don’t get to work!

After the holidays, I’ll be offering beginner handspinning classes here at the farm.  Contact me for info.

This week is “get ready for Rhinebeck”.  I have yarn to skein, wash and price, felting batts to price, patterns to print and samples to knit.  And not enough time! And it sounds like I’ll need to dig out some warm clothes! Dinner on the patio at Gigi’s will be chilly; I hope they have the heaters out!

If you’re coming to Rhinebeck, I’m in barn #26.

We had a great weekend at the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival even with the wet weather on Saturday. Everyone seemed to like the new location at Tunbridge Fairgrounds.  I believe plans are already in the works for same time and location next year.