While the rest of the knitting world had their eyes on Rhinebeck, NY this weekend, I spent most of the day Saturday at the Autumn Fiber Festival in Ashland, OH. (That's about 1 hour away from where I live, Rhinebeck is more like 9 hours.).
I was pleasantly surprised to see when I arrived that the event would be taking place inside as it rained all day Saturday. On approaching the building, I was greated buy this Rambouillet Sheep....
Some llamas....
And several Alpacas. In case you were unaware, "Ohio leads the nation with the largest number of alpaca farms and the greatest number of alpacas. With nearly 12% of the alpacas raised in the USA being registered to Ohio alpaca owners" (Ohio Alpaca Breeders Association). As a result a large percentage of the fiber and goods available at Ohio Fiber Shows are alpaca heavy. On with the swag!
The first thing I purchased was this 100% Alpaca in a sport weight, 300 yards from Storybook Alpacas. It is super soft and is from the fleece of their multiple champion alpaca, Manifestation (Manny as I was told by his owner), hence the colorway name, Manifestation of Grey. This is a perfect example of a natural undyed Ohio raised and spun fiber. I can't wait to work with it.
I also picked up my first llama yarn from Midwest Fiber Farm. It looks to me like a light DK weight, and is 80% natural undyed Llama and 20% Merino Silk blend. See those little pops of turquoise and green? It really adds a lot of dimension to the natural colored llama. And with 2 skeins of 300 yds each, I should be able to do something substantial with it.
I went to the festival with absolutely no intention of buying any spinning fiber. I'm still working on the samples from my spinning class last month for goodness sakes. But when I saw this 100% Falkland Wool from Gwen Erin Natural Fibers in the Fesh Air colorway, I knew it had to come home with me. I'm going to have to find someone willing to lend me a spinning wheel to get through all of the fiber I've accumulated over the last 3 months!
I also picked up this Alpaca Yarn Company Swizzle yarn in the Peacock colorway from the Alpaca Meadows booth. I just love the color gradient blues and greens plied together with black. I can't wait to see how this one works up!
I also stumbled on some Schoppel-Wolle Zauberballs at the Noah's Landing table (Fingering weight 75% Virgin wool 25% nylon 459 yds) in the Charisma colorway for myself.
And I grabbed this one called Wuzelsepp, which according to google translates to "Country Bumpkin," for something for my husband, maybe socks...
Finally, I have fallen in love with my ChiaoGoo knitting needles since knitting 2 pairs of socks on them and was lamenting that I wasn't working on any small projects that required them. I found these while chatting with the ladies at the Soft n Sassy Fiber Arts booth. It is a complete set of the ChiaoGoo Red Lace interchangeable needles (you can purchase just the small and large sets as well)!
I was super impressed with this set which in coeds 13 sets of needle tips, 6 cables in 3 different lengths (one of each for both the small (size 2 thru 8) and large (size 9 thru 15) needles, stitch markers in three different sizes, cable keys end caps, and cord extensions (for hooking two different cables together to make a larger cable) and a needle gauge! It all comes in a soft size case with each needle size slot clearly marked with both the us and metric sizes. There are also a ton of empty needle slots on a tier below the main ones to hold additional tips or dpn's. I can't wait to cast on with these!
What's your favorite local fiber festival?
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