Michigan Fiber Festival

The Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, MI turned out to be a wonderful daytrip. Neat people, neat critters and neat fiber -- what more could a knitty city girl want? Advance apologies to people with dialup connections -- this is a pretty picture heavy post.

Neat People

I'll start with the neat people! One of the best thing about blogging for me has been making a wonderful collection of new online creative friends. While online is great, I think it's even more fun to move online into "real life". Yesterday I got to do just that. Originally, I planned this trip with just my knitbud, Julie. Then, after a little local knit night, I got to meet Bonnie Marie, and she came with us, too! After I posted about our trip, Tonya dropped me an email to say she was going to be there, too. Here we all are not too long after meeting up.

From Left to Right: Julie, Me, Bonnie Marie and Tonya

Later on in the day (just as we were on our way out of the last barn) we all ran into Lynn -- who had spent most of the week at the festival. Lynn had so much happy exuberance that I wished I had been there all week, too.

From Left to Right: Julie, Me and Lynn

There's really nothing like being able to put real faces and voices to the blogs I read. It was wonderful to meet Tonya and Lynn and to get to spend the day with new and old friends.

Neat Critters

But this was a fiber festival, and of course, some beautiful sources of fiber were at the show to be seen and shown off. Angora rabbits, alpacas, llamas and at least zillion different types of sheep, were there to see and enjoy. Here's a little sample of the wonderful creatures we got to see:

Baby Alpacas

Adult Male Llama

A Rainbow of Shetland Sheep

My favorite picture of the whole show: a lovely ram whose breed I can't remember

Neat Fiber

I wouldn't want anyone to think that I got away from this show without spending my pennies on some fibery goodness. Fortunately for my wallet, I am not a spinner -- there was so much top there in a rainbow of amazing colors. Interestingly, almost all of my purchases were inspired by neat patterns and not just impulse fiber grabbing.

My first stop was Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill of Mt. Horeb, WI. The very nice folks at this booth were lovely to talk to and had a lovely selection of fibers and colors. The thing that initially drew me to their booth was, actually, my husband. John pointed to a sweater hanging up on display and said "I'd wear that". Well, John likes so few sweater patterns, that I had to find out if there was a pattern that I could buy. Sure enough, it was their Lattice and Seed Stitch Pullover Sweater. After looking at that, my eyes travelled over to a lovely lace scarf display. A Week in the Life of a Knitter's Cat has 8 lovely lace scarf patterns. It inspired my first yarn purchase:

Lace Weight Silk Wool Blend in Dark Violet

The next purchase was from Dzined. The skein below is destined to be socks, as Bonnie Marie assured us that this incredible Wool, Hemp, Mohair blend was wore well and just keeps getting softer wash after wash. Apparently, while the wool will full in the wash, the hemp fibers keep the felting process from happening. Her colorways are all unique and it was almost hard to choose from all the possibilities. (I picked up the Noro at a different booth. It's not terribly special, I've just been looking for a few skeins in this colorway to try out Julie's Felted Bag pattern with).

The Shelridge Farm booth got my attention because of a Lucy Neatby pattern I've been coveting: Fiesta Feet Socks. A combination of Fair Isle and other kntting techniques that were just impossible for me to pass by yesterday. Not only that, but the owner who was there was lovely and helpful and not at all pushy. I bought some yarn from their flock (they have about 100 sheep) that reminded me of Koigu which will eventually become these lovely socks. They've got some lovely kits and their website is worth checking out.

By now you are almost thinking that I was relatively well behaved and in control with my yarn purcahses. Really, I would have been had it not been for Tracy Bunkers and her Bonkers yarn. Really. But there was just too much color and texture for me to escape the pull of this particular fibery gravitational sink. I saw this sweater -- just enough texture to make the sweater fun and interesting, but not too much so that it doesn't come together quickly. And that led to this purchase:

Yum! It's a little hard to see how turquoise this yarn is. This sweater is going to glow when it's all done up. It really needs to get cooler in Chicago soon...

This was a wonderful trip. A great adventure and feast for the eyes. I want to say a great big THANK YOU to my incredible husband (I know a lot of you out there think that you have the worlds greatest guy... but well, I'd put serious odds on my sweetie) -- he did all the driving so that Bonnie Marie and I could knit and he patiently tromped through the barns and helped me take sheep pictures. He's definitely the sort of guy who needs a custom designed sweater soon!

I'm off to work on the back of the Karabella Halter... I ripped the whole thing out and decided to do the back one size smaller (it's just narrower, not shorter) and to do K2 P2 ribbing all the way across. I've finshed decreasing for the waist and now am starting the increases. Wish me luck! If that doesn't snug up the fit, I'm gonna be one unhappy camper.