Fibre Fun Weekend

I'm so very tired and my feet are hurting. But I had such a good fibre weekend that I would do it all again, given the chance. I don't know where to start.

Friday

Fiber Festival at Tradex in Abbotsford. It was so much fun! With everything we had planned this weekend, I knew that I won't have time to go both days. Instead of a workshop, Amber and I shopped till we dropped...literally.

I came home with just few things. :)

It was a Merino kind of day. Two bags of merino/silk, one bag of 100% merino, one bag of merino/bison, two bags of jet black alpaca, 200gms cotwold/silk blend, one skein of handpainted tencel, one bag of fake cashmere, 1 set of Crystal Palace double pointed needles in a size & length I don't already have, and a couple of magazines.

The fake cashmere is nylon so I thought it would be something to blend with merino for socks. I still have so much of that merino from Black Sheep last year.

The black alpaca is from Cortes Island Suri Alpacas. There's a picture of Thunder, the Alpaca. My son has met Thunder and he is as gorgeous as his picture.

Still, considering what was there, I thought I showed remarkable restraint. We shopped until 4:30pm, met up with the rest of the gang (who were finishing up the Nuno felting workshop. There should be some pics on the Twisted By Choice blog in a few days.) for more shopping and a late dinner. I was exhausted by the time I got home. I think I spent just as much time chatting with everyone as I did shopping. :D

Saturday

This was our Sock Painting Day at the Clubhouse. Jade's husband had kindly made us two jigs. We got together about 10am-ish...and finished at 8:30pm! The first two skeins took us 6 hours to organize and paint. The rest was much faster once we figured out what we were doing. Heh! It was done with our usual trial and error method - accompanied by a lot of laughing and giggling.

We did managed to finish painting six skeins. I love how they turned out! There were some surprising results after steaming. Some colours bled and separated, making interesting effects. Other colours changed drastically - some were more vibrant and some were more muted than we origianlly thought. I think we were all happy with the results. More socks to knit!

Sunday

I really don't like losing that hour when we move the clocks forward. Especially this busy weekend. I think we should all petition to change that to Wednesday - I don't mind giving up an hour of work time for daylight savings. :) Weekends are short enough as it is.

The Glass Bead workshop was so much fun! Kerri Fuhr is a very attentive instructor and talented bead maker. She had all of us oohing and ahhing over her work. At the beginning of the class, Kerri passed around samples of her work. The work was fantastic! They were the kind of stuff that you want all of it - every single last bead!

During the class, as Kerri explained different techniques, she would pass the samples around again. After trying it out for ourselves, we can appreciate the hard work that goes into the making of a single bead. Our attempts were nothing like hers. I'm not going to point out which misshapen beads are mine. Making glass beads (or Lampworking) was something I've always wanted to try. Despite the wobbly first beads, I really enjoy working with the glass and came home with one of her beginner's kits. I'm trying not to think of this as a new hobby but as something that will accessorize my fibre work.