Olde Liberty Fibre Faire {2015}

You might remember that last year I went to a fiber festival for the first time. Of course I absolutely loved it, and I knew I wanted to go back this year! On Saturday we headed to Bedford, Virginia for the Olde Liberty Fibre Faire.

It was a beautiful day (after a rather damp week), and I had such a good time. I know I've said this before, but I don't spend a lot of time with other knitters and spinners in real life. The online community is wonderful, of course, but sometimes it's so nice to be around people who are just as obsessed with yarn and fiber as I am. It was fun to get to talk to some of the spinners who were really encouraging when I started spinning a few years ago.

And also, I got to meet Carolynn for the first time! A while back, we were paired up as penpals through a blog. Not only did we have a lot in common (we both love yarn, books, and Doctor Who), but it turned out that we live in the same state! So after being penpals and then blog friends for a couple of years, we met up at the fiber festival. Carolynn is so sweet. She surprised me with a book and a bag that she sewed! It's made from the cutest fabric (which coordinates with my big project bag), and it's currently holding one of the socks I'm knitting. :)

The fiber community is pretty awesome. I love that fiber arts are so endless...you've got knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, dyeing, fiber preparation, and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting, plus any combination of those. And the people in this community are just as diverse! I like seeing very traditional knitters rubbing shoulders with modern dyers or people spinning art yarn. Grandmothers and teenagers, brightly dyed roving next to straight-off-the-sheep fleece, farmers and nerds*, and everyone in between.

*I wore my Doctor Who/Sherlock shirt and several people commented on it.

 

Of course I bought some pretty stuff. :) With the exception of a few mini-skeins for my blanket (which I'm not counting), I hadn't bought any yarn this year. I was trying to shrink my stash a little, but I also wanted to save up money for the fiber festival. {Ironically, I won yarn in a couple of giveaways during that time.} So I met my goal! The only problem is that I'm afraid my stash is going to start growing again now that I don't have a specific no-yarn rule. (I think I need to go back and reread this post.) Anyway...here's what I got:

 

I used to roll my eyes at knitters who were obsessed with sock yarn. Guess what? I'm one of those people now. (Knitting has taught me to never say never. Everything I say comes back to haunt me.) I bought three yarns and they're all sock yarn. And interestingly, I bought yarn from the exact same three vendors that I bought yarn from last year. :)

The one on the left is from Gershubie Fiber Arts. It's like mint chocolate chip ice cream in yarn form, and it was on sale because it was the last skein of that colorway! It's 440 yards of a 75/25 SW Merino and nylon blend.

The one in the center is from Fairy Tale Knits (the dyer of the yarn from my recently knitted mitts!). I made sure to get a blend with nylon in it this time so I can knit socks from it. I saw some spinning fiber once that was dyed very similar to this, bright red and turquoise, and the colorway was called Jaws. Slightly morbid and gross, but I love these two colors together and I've always wanted to knit with them. :) This one is 410 yards of 80/20 SW Merino and nylon.

And the last yarn, on the right, is from one of my favorite local dyers: Unplanned Peacock Studio. I've made a Hitchhiker from her sock yarn (and a pair of socks for my mom), so now I'll finally have my own socks from her yarn! And I love the colors in this beautiful skein: purples and blues and greenish-browns. (Plus, with 460 yards there will be plenty left over for my scrap blanket!)

I also got some spinning fiber. This is approx. 4 ounces of Falkland wool from Tale & Tendril. I'll probably be spinning this into some yarn for the shop.

And because I'm apparently always drawn to the same colors, I bought this Merino spinning fiber from Shirsty Cat Designs. It's similar to the fiber above, purples and blues, but in lighter shades.

I also bought a pack of these pretty stitch markers (there are more than two, obviously, but I didn't want to dump them all out) and this handmade diz (I'm hoping to get some wool combs this year, and you use a diz to turn the fiber on the combs into combed top). I love that goofy sheep face. :) They also had some pottery pieces with alpaca faces on them, and those were adorable.

And finally, I got some natural roving. I have plans for a Nordic Wind shawl made from handspun US wool. So I picked out 4 ounces of white Coopworth and 8 ounces of gray Jacob roving from a farm in West Virginia. Then I also have 4 ounces of black wool. I originally planned on using four colors, but I couldn't really find grays that were different enough, so I might just use these or find some way to combine them to make four colors. I'm excited! :) It'll be fun to spin wool breeds that I've never spun before and use them all in one big project.