Madrona 7

Hello:

Another Madrona Fiber Arts Festival post.  I am almost finished with them.  Whew, quite a bit of fiber information.

In the corner of the market, I found Woolgatherings.

This booth had hand dyed bats and yarns for sale.

Although the colors were beautiful, what really struck my fancy in this booth was the undyed fiber.

They had a huge amount of different types.  So many possibilities.  Another cool thing Woolgatherings offers is their Sampler Bags.  You could buy a bag of 24 different breeds' fibers.  It is such a great idea for someone who wants to try a new wool breed before committing to spinning up a large amount.

Hansen Crafts had a booth full of their mini-spinners.

There were a few people spinning on them in the outer area.  These are really nice.

Crown Mountain Farms, from Yelm, WA was nearby.

They really had FIBER for sale.

I love how it was all named.  They also had dyed fiber, in some beautiful colors.

Harmony Skin Care (skincareharmony@aol.com)  was selling soaps and lotions.

Why would they be at a Fiber Arts Festival with soaps and lotions?

Well, if you have ever had rough spots on your fingers or hands catch on your yarn, you would know.  Also, if you have put on lotion, and then picked up your knitting only to leave a grease spot on the fabric, you would know.

Their lotions are specially made to be non-greasy.

Sheila and Michael Ernst, of Ernst Finely Crafted Glass were selling beautiful knitting needles and buttons.

Some of the needles were completely glass.  Some had bamboo shafts and beautiful glass tops.  They also had a large selection of glass buttons.

The last booth I visited was the Habu Textiles Booth.  This is a company from Japan with weird yarn.  By weird, I mean unique and amazing.

They had all kinds of patterns knit up from their yarns so you could see the possibilities. 

The yarns were mostly sold on spools, and were so fine, they were more like thread.

Some were 100% Merino, some were blends with silk or metals.  They even had some spools of just metallic thread.

I broke down and bought a spool of copper and one of Merino.  I have no idea what I will try to knit or crochet.  I plan to hold them together and make... something.  We shall see.

That's it for Madrona 2013.  There were more booths (I know!  still more than what I could show here).  But, I hope this gives you a taste of what you can see at even a relatively small fiber festival.  Hope you enjoyed it.  I sure had fun.

Peace,
f1bercat
Shaping the planet with new copper thread/yarn.

Madrona 5

Hello,

We had an absolutely beautiful day today.

I spent it knitting.  Well, I cleaned house, too.

Stinks. 

The house cleaning part stinks, the knitting was great.  I had to frog my Smaug socks back to the heel flaps, yet, I am almost to the toes on the right one.  I gave in and am finishing them one at a time.  Because the yarn is light fingering, and I am knitting them on size 0 (2.0mm) needles to have decently tight fabric, they are very tight.  I might have to give them to my daughter, Moogie.  I might actually make this pattern again with slightly thicker yarn so I can keep a pair, as I really love the look. I will have to go through my sock yarns and look for something suitable.

I don't have any photos of the latest progress, but I do have a photo of my spinning.  Last night, my good Stitch Bud, Wajio, came over, and we had a spinning night.

She had just gotten a new Russian Spindle, and brought it over.  It was really beautiful.  I had so much fun chatting with her while we spun,  I have now finished two spools of singles.  I was thinking I would spin three, then try a 3-ply.  But, as these singles are still very uneven, it is probably best that I just ply these up.  I want to try to turn in yarn for one of the HPKCHC classes, but I am not sure if I meet any of the prompts.  Also, because I started the singles in January, I don't know if they would count.  I will check and report back.  Maybe plying counts.  The other idea I had was to ply up the yarn, then dye it.  I know that dying yarn counts for most class prompts.  I have never tried dying yarn, just a bit of tie-dying with my kids in summer day camps.  It might be fun.

On to my continuing reports of the vendors at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival in Tacoma, WA.

There are more than fiber and yarn vendors at Madrona.  One such booth was  Jewelry by "K."    She had some beautiful shawl pins.

She also had glass beads.

I wished I was knitting something that needed beads.

Jewelry by K was sharing a booth with the dyer, Dicentra Designs. 

Very beautiful colors.

Carolina Homespun had a really big booth.  They had fiber for sale, but what was more interesting in their booth was all of the fiber tools.

I was tempted to buy some hand carders.  I think I need some.  Two of my friends have drum carders.  I'm sure they will let me use them, if I get a fleece.  But what about if I get some fiber that just needs a bit of combing.  Right?  I might need hand carders. 

Jennie the Potter had hand crafted mugs, stitch markers, jewelry, and buttons for sale.

The mugs have such cute motifs.  Many have sheep on them.  Skeinherder bought a mug.  I envy her.  Jenny also makes yarn bowls.  These are really special.

The last booth I'm going to talk about tonight is Just Our Yarn.

They carried hand-painted yarns of various fibers, as well as kits. 

I almost can't describe these yarns.  They were so different from most of the yarns I have seen before.

They had some sweaters knit up in these really strange yarns.  They were like pieces of art.


That's all for tonight.  I hope to get in an extra post tomorrow about Madrona (yes, there are MORE vendors) before heading out to stitch night with my Eastside Stitchers.

Until then,
Peace,

f1bercat
shaping the planet with some spools of spun singles.

Brenda Dayne demonstrates her spindle technique for me.

Madrona 4

Hello,

I'm going to continue writing about the vendors I saw at the Madrona Fiber Festival in Tacoma, WA.

RainShadow Yarn, from Kingston, WA carries specially spun yarn and rovings from fiber from their own sheep and wool from other Pacific Northwest farms.

The unspun fiber was just beautiful.

I felt like I was in an artisan ice cream shop.

The idea of being able to eat this stuff is not too far off the mark, either, as they use only natural dyes.  Ok, I wouldn't really eat it, but you get my meaning.  They also had the dyes for sale.

I had the idea that naturally dyed fibers would have pale, muted colors. And that the colors would be rather limited.  These were vibrant, and covered just about any color you could want.

The Artful Ewe, from Port Gamble, WA carries beautiful hand dyed yarns

and fibers for spinning, knitting, and weaving.

Abstract Fiber, from Portland, OR carried handpainted yarns and fibers.

I mean, just look at these colors:

Some of the colors were so eye-popping, I felt a bit overwhelmed, but in a great way.  You know that dizzy feeling you get when you walk into a really great yarn store, and you have money and know that you need yarn for a few projects?  Better than candy.

Black Water Abbey Yarns from Aurora, CO bucked the local fiber trend and carried yarns imported from Ireland.

They had a nice selection of patterns to support the yarns.  You could see the garments knit up, and even try them on.

I will continue my Madrona posts tomorrow.

On to my own knitting!

I knew I shouldn't have posted that I had gotten the Smaug Socks pattern under control.  Somehow, I had reduced the gusset too much, and was short the correct number of stitches in the feet.  I have lost quite a bit of weight since last summer, and this has really slimmed down my feet (why can't it affect my waist and big butt as much?), but although I could still get the socks on, they were a bit tight.  Because I have sock group deadlines, I was tempted to just keep going, finish them and deal with it all later, but I was afraid that I wouldn't deal with it, and just end up giving the socks away.  I really love this pattern and the sock color.  I took a big breath and frogged back quite a few rows.

I would rather have the socks fit, than win a prize and never be able to wear them.  If I hurry and catch back up, though, I can wear them, AND still be in the running for prizes.

I also started a pair of fingerless mitts.  These use the Toast pattern by Leslie Friend.  These are for the Quidditch Challenge 3 which is a partner challenge.  We have to find a partner, pick a pattern jointly, then both modify the pattern.  When I say I am using the Toast pattern, I say that in the loosest way.  The pattern is for "fingerless mitts."  Really just 2 tubes of knitting.  I don't think I am breaking any copyright rules here by saying the pattern states something like, "cast on X stitches, divide over 3 needles, knit in the round for Y inches."  I am using some mystery yarn from my stash that I got in a School Charity Auction Basket years and years ago that doesn't quite make the gauge.  So my first modification is to cast on extra stitches.  Mod #2 is that I am knitting mine in a ribbed pattern (KKP).  Mod #3 will be that I plan to make them a bit shorter than the pattern length.  I also hope to donate these to charity, and get a Quidditch Charity Bonus.  This is perfect brainless knitting so I can do it while watching NCIS with the Doc tomorrow night if I haven't finished them by then.  The yarn is pretty, though, and I think they will look very nice when I am done.

Back to the Smaug Socks.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with frogged socks.

knitting at Madrona