Great Lakes Fiber Festival

This past weekend was the Great Lakes Sheep and Fiber Festival in Wooster, OH (about 2.5 hours from our farm).  What a time we had.  All of my baskets went and were a big hit (this is why there are currently none listed in my shop, but don't worry, more to come!).  Above is some of the beautiful roving in one of the booths.  The colors were fantastic!  Here's some other pictures from the festival.

Our booth.  It was shared between Stramba Fiber Mill who is a local alpaca farm and fiber processing mill and Alpaca Fiber Studio and Friends who specializes in beautiful hand dyed and painted yarns, batts, and wearable art.  

Here's one of my newest creations!  I call it the "Zombie Scarf".  Maybe because of the colors.  Some people call them Fairy Scarves, but the zombie name just stuck in my head!  I'm fairly new to water/needle felting, but folks, this is fairly simple!  For those of you looking for a way to take your own wools and process them into something beautiful without having to spin them, felting is it!  There is so much potential with felting.  I never knew.  Check out this book if you need some tips and ideas: Fabulous Felted Scarves by Chad Alice Hagan and Jorie Johnson.  And there's one of my baskets hiding down there.

Here's one of the fabulous hand felted works of art by Robbie Grodin of Alpaca Fiber Studio and Friends.  She has an amazing talent for color!  We bartered a basket for some yarn.  A good trade.

 Another shot from the front of our booth.  There was just SO much wonderful color there!  I especially love the colors in the alpaca rug in the center.  I was able to be a part of the process.  It was so neat to see it come together.  Terri from Stramba Fiber Mill processed the rug yarn, I dyed it, and my friend Lisel from the Harmony Weaver's Cabin wove it all together.  How amazing when you get to see a work of art that used the talents of so many hands come together like that.

 Here's some lock spun yarn from another vendor's booth.  This was spun from Wensleydale sheep.  Another of my favorite which I hope to own some day.  I bought a few fleeces at the show and hope to combine it with some other fleeces waiting to be spun to create some yarn like this.  I had to post this as a large picture so you could see better all curly locks spun into a strand of yarn! 

Here are a couple Border Leicester Ewes in the barn.  I bought a couple of Border Leicester fleeces in what we like to call a 'behind the barn' sale.   It's not as mischievous as it sounds.  Many shepherds bring their fleeces to festivals to sell.  They are somewhat confined to the barns with their animals (as opposed to a booth in one of the buildings), so we simple asks ask them if they have any fleeces for sale.  Most of them do, and you can get them for a great price that way.  

A few of the finds from the festival.  The huge ball of roving was used to make another zombie scarf.  It in the process right now.  I'll post pictures of it when it's finished.  There was so much fiber there though that I think I'll spin the remainder into yarn.  Same with the smaller green/gray ball.  They yarn was my barter!  I also found a needle felting kit, and some silk hankies to spin, which I've never done yet.  This along with the three raw fleeces I found, should keep me pretty busy all summer!


On another note, I'm recovering from having my wisdom teeth removed yesterday and two other upper molars.  I lost a front tooth as well!  It was an old root canal from trauma as a kid.  Seven all together - Yikes!   Sounds so, for lack of a better word, Redneck.  It was the first time I had ever had anesthesia before.  What a weird experience.  Took eight sticks to find a vein.  I inherited my mother's veins, apparently.  But once they got it, I was given something that made me pretty loopy.  I started talking about all sorts of things!  I remember that, but I don't remember going to sleep, just waking up.  It was pretty quick.  In and out in two hours.  And surprisingly, I'm not even noticeable swollen this morning, nor did I have to take some of the stronger pain meds, just Motrin.  Tomorrow I will have that front tooth replaced.  I'll try not to smile until then.  Might scare someone away!  =)  No rest for the weary, though.  I've got potatoes and onions still to get in the garden, herbs and lettuces to plant, and another bed to weed and plant.  Add that to basket-making, felting, laundry, and washing fleeces and you've got one busy girl.  
Lastly, on a 'better' note - we got some rain!  And the plants soaked it right up.  It was nice to not have to water the garden, at least for one night.