It's fiber festival time!

On Saturday Bill and I piled into the car and took a scenic drive to the Washington County Fairgrounds to attend the first annual Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

It was a beautiful day, the temperatures were cool, perfect shawl weather, and it was bright and sunny all day. There were over 80 venders there. On top of spinning, weaving, and rug hooking demonstrations, and a really interesting sheep sheering demo.



we saw cashmere goats, llamas, alpacas,



and Bill got to commune with some sheep:


(I love this picture)


Bill bought lots of yummy smelling hand made soap from Natural Specialties (no web site, but they'll be at Rhinebeck!) and Saratoga Suds 'n' Stuff

We drooled over the shirts from five sheep and a donkey especially the baby's onesies, soo cute!

And finally I gave in and bought 9oz of hand dyed wool from Spinners Hill


I plan on making a baby surprise jacket out of it for TW and hopefully a hat and maybe mittens if I have enough left over.

I wanted to preserve the colors so I split it into three sections for easier handling (my bobbins will only hold about 4 oz each) and when I go to spin I'll split each section in half lengthwise and then ply each half together to (hopefully) get a self striping two ply.



I just love the colours in this roving, it reminds me both of autumn, but also of summer fields, I can't wait to get started on this!



Afterwards Bill and I were talking, and we really enjoyed how small the festival was, unlike Rhinebeck with its huge grounds and huger crowds. It was so calm yet cheerful, we could actually stroll up and down the aisles, and were able to take our time as we perused the vendors, and I never got jostled once! The SAFF will undoubtedly get bigger and more popular as the years go on and it gets more advertising and more activities and such. But for now we are going to enjoy the calm and stress free time wile we can. (Don't get me wrong, we LOVE Rhinebeck, and definitely plan on going, but anybody who has been there will tell you, the crowds are wild, and it can be a bit stressful trying to check out all the vendors and their wares while a massive crowd presses in around you trying to do the same)