Fiber Festing!

Yesterday one of the Weavers' Guilds in the LA area celebrated their 60th year with a really nice little Fiber Festival. I went with some newly-met friends, Sknitty and Knitdevil, having only chatted with them online. Of course a great many of the vendors had fiber for spinners and weavers, but there were several really nice yarn booths, especially those with small-lot hand-dyed yarns. I once again won the award for "most purchases within my group", but I can't show off most of it, since the goodies are for presents to my yarny friends. {VBG} (very big grin). This little pile of yarn heaven is from Capistrano Fiber Arts, in their 'Poppies' color; enough 50% merino/50% silk for a lovely small shawl. The color name is puzzling, since I've never seen poppies in these subtle, elegant shades of rose and mauve and greeny-taupe, but it is beautiful nonetheless.

There was an especially nice raffle setup. Each item had its own jar, so you put your tickets into them depending on what item you wanted. Great idea, since for a knitter like me, winning a bunch of gorgeous roving would be nice, but essentially useless. I managed to crack up the group, and I mean nearly the whole group of eager raffle hopefuls: I'd put my tickets on a couple of big lots of sock-type yarns, and when both of those went to someone else, I tossed my stubs into the trash bin next to me. The next item was a big skein of Schaefer's Laurel mercerized cotton, and the number called out sounded familiar. So I dived right back into the bin (clean waste) and retrieved my winning ticket! Yay! And I laughed as hard as the rest; I'd completely forgotten that I'd put a ticket in for that! Here's the beautiful skein, in Schaefer's Queen Lili'uokalani colors; it makes me think of those big macaws, or a school of tropical fish!

The weavers' guild had a truly lovely little fashion show of beautiful items, and Sknitty and a friend who'd driven up from another part of LA to meet us, both of them tall, slender blondes, were asked to model! Knitdevil took pictures, and promised to put them on her blog. There was also special recognition given to two of the guild members, who were apparently among the earliest members of the group. It was fascinating to look at the skill and artistry of the fibers and intricate weaves of the featured garments. No, I didn't catch the weaver bug, nor the spinner one. It was so interesting to see the various types of portable spinning wheels, including one I'd never seen before, which folds up into its own beautiful wood cabinet.

It was a long drive home, but we had a great time chatting and getting to know one another better. I've been invited to visit their weekly meeting, and they've promised to include me in their next trek to the fabled Yarn Lady parking lot sale! They said it has to be experienced, though neither of them have yet worked up the yarns they bought at their first visit.