fiber, fiber and fiber stuff

Friday, Sept 25th, we (Ivana and i) got ready, checked out of our Portland area hotel and proceeded south to Wilsonville. We then, checked-into our next hotel (the La Quinta, it was a GREAT hotel). After getting our luggage to our room, we headed to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon (just a few minutes south of our Wilsonville hotel). Our spindle class was to start at 1:30. We were a bit early, so we spent an hour or so watching vendors set up their booths. It was time to go to class! Below is Amelia Garripoli pictured with me.(http://www.thebellwether.com/ or askthebellwether.blogspot.com) She taught our class "I Wanna Spindle" She is a great teacher! She was patient and fun! After about 3 hours of class we were able to make about 2 yards of 2 ply yarn.

The picture below: drop spindles handmade of exotic woods. They are usually "one-of-a-kind". The white thread wound around is some practice thread i did out of prepared wool fibers. The beautiful variegated pink "fluff" is wool prepared and dyed for spinning, umm-yummy! and the black is dyed merino prepared into roving for spinning also, oh-so-soft!

All around the festival visitors would find these leeetle sheepies with words to describe areas and/or places to go.

A group of visitors who decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather by sitting, visiting, and spinning or knitting. It was mid 70's and mostly sunny.
A sweet satin angora rabbit. i kept wishing i could take him home with me. but, i didn't think they would let me on the plane with him. And even if i was allowed on the plane with him, Victor porbably wouldn't have let me in the house. He and bunnies like him provide VERY soft fibers to spin into yarn. No, he doesn't have to die to give it to us. Just cut his his hair every week or so. =+)
This sheep has a coat on. Most sheep that are grown for a spinner to spin it's wool..........wear coats year round. This keeps all the vegetation and quite a bit of the dirt out.
gotta love the alpacas! they have the cutest faces! - even with a bit of hay on their face.
one vendor brought a small motorhome as their vendor quarters, very unique and interesting.

more fiber friendlies hanging out under the trees
This is the nice lady that i bought some really beautiful "one-of-a-kind" spindles from.
Judy Gunn - a fellow Utahan was a vendor at the Fair. Her booth was usually swarming with ladies wanting to know how to make locker hooked rugs out of her rovings. She was very nice to take me from the hotel to the festival as my other friend had a prior commitment for Sat am.

EVERY person i came in contact with either vendor or visitor, was sooooo VERY nice, so very friendly/helpful. There were hand blown glass knitting needles, antique spinning wheels and unique spinning wheels, gorgeous fibers from every kind of animal and plant (both in their native colors and dyed in all the colors of the rainbow), there were handmade bags hand-dyed and felted, handwoven baskets each with their unique stripes of colors, handmade soaps and lotions with wonderful smells to delight the nose, there was good food, not "fast" food, but rather "down-home" cookin of pulled pork, lamb chops, fruits, salads, great hot dogs, and scrumptious bakery goods. This Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is a CREDIT to Canby, Oregon, to those who put in all the hard work to organize and bring people together for classes, vending, food and fun!! it is definitely on my calendar for 2010. http://www.flockandfiberfestival.com/