It seems that going to the Olde Liberty Fibre Faire has become a yearly tradition. {See 2014 and 2015.} It happens to usually fall very close to my birthday, so the fiber festival has become an extension of my birthday. (I'm twenty-five now...what? This year I managed to stretch my birthday celebration to four days. I think that's a new record.)
This year it was at a different location: A Goode View Alpaca Farm in Goode, Virginia. I don't think it was any further away from us than before, and we drove through some pretty country to get there. I think the new location was an improvement because most of the vendors were outside and there was plenty of room. At the Lion's Club, most of the vendors were inside a building and things were cramped.
As always, I had such a nice time at the festival. (And, as always, I was so excited that I forgot to take many pictures.) Since I go to a knitting group every week now, I'm not quite as starved for interactions with fiber people as I used to be. :) But it's still a good feeling to be in a place full of knitters, spinners, farmers, dyers, and weavers. People who are just as obsessed with fiber as I am, or more so. I ran into several ladies who were very helpful when I first started knitting and spinning, and it's always good to see them again.
It was a beautiful day and I came home feeling very inspired. (And more determined than ever to have my own wool sheep. Those two adorable lambs above were for sale, and they're Rambouillet/Merino. How perfect would that be?) Of course I also came home with some new yarn and fiber. :)
I've become one of those knitters who loves sock yarn. (Thankfully I also love knitting socks.) I'm slowly but steadily knitting down my stash, but somehow my pile of sock yarn never seems to shrink. On the left is a skein from Unplanned Peacock Studio. I've knitted with her Peacock Sock yarn three times, and it's one of my favorite yarns. So far I've made a pair of socks for my mom, a Hitchhiker, and a Stripe Study Shawl, but this time I'm finally going to get my own pair of socks from her yarn. :) This is her exclusive colorway for this year's festival...every year I end up buying her festival colorway because it's always so gorgeous.
The middle yarn is a lovely blueish-gray from Gershubie Fiber Arts. I mostly knit plain socks from variegated yarns. But I'd like to have a few pairs of fancier socks made from more solid or tonal yarns, so that's what this will be. The yarn on the right is actually a Christmas gift that I picked out for my parents to give me, but I thought I'd include it anyway since it came from the festival. It's sparkly sock yarn, again from Unplanned Peacock Studio.
I really enjoy spinning Finn fiber, so I bought 4 ounces of it in an orange and gray colorway, which I think will become a nice yarn for a fall knitting project. Then I bought 4 ounces of really soft fiber that's 60% alpaca, 20% merino, and 20% BFL. It's mostly brown but has some gray and a bit of dyed blue mixed in. And finally, I got some more Rambouillet. After spinning it only once, Rambouillet became one of my favorite fibers. This is from a local farm, and I got 2 ounces of blue/teal and 2 ounces of teal and rusty brown. I'm going to spin them together for a project.
