Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival 2011

Marking the end of fiber festival season in this part of the world, Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival happened this weekend, to both sun (Saturday) and pouring rain (Sunday). I went up with a friend on Saturday and spent most of the day there, looking at the critters, breathing in the fibery goodness, and taking time in the afternoon to sit and knit with friends.

This young lady had a beautiful angora goat (the kind that give mohair) for sale that she was parading around, attracting the younger set who wanted to pet the long, curly locks.

As for the other angora, the kind that give angora, there were lots in attendance, some being sold. This lovely fellow was wiggling around until he saw the camera. Then he sat down and posed.

The adorable alpaca, with his fresh haircut, wanted to get up close and meet everyone. Definitely wanted a shot from his good side.

Gotland sheep were the featured breed of the year. If I'd wanted the fleece, I could have had it sheared for me right then and there:

Churros gave a lovely showing as well:

I'd seen pictures of Scottish blackface sheep, but I had no idea they were this tiny. These little guys are almost lap-sized. While the fleece is often coarse, this little flock felt like they were soft enough for good outerwear.

I didn't catch what breed this little lambie-pie was, but it was some kind of hair sheep:

For all you Blue-faced Leicester fans, here's that famous "blue" face:

In the marketplace, I saw the new Schacht Sidekick being demonstrated at the Abstract Fiber booth:

Every year I'm tempted by these glass needles, but I haven't succumbed yet. Maybe sometime. There was a pair out for demonstration just to prove that they don't really squeak when you knit with them.

And at the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth -- anyone who practiced the flash mob dance for Sock Summit should recognize Steven. Tina (one half of ST1) is behind him to the left.

This was a great book booth, with lots of vintage and antique books. I picked up two books of sweater patterns from the 40s for my vintage collection.

The best part, of course, is meeting up with friends to knit and spin together, and to show off all the new pretties.

I was pretty restrained this time around, since my stash boxes are stuffed full. I even had cash left when I was done. I picked up (clockwise from the left) a 4 oz hank of silk/alpaca blend to spin, a 2 oz cup of B-type pygora fiber, two 2 oz hanks of pure silk spinning fiber from Blue Moon (in the Morticia colorway, which made it totally irresistible), a skein of mill ends Socks that Rock from the Blue Moon both, and in the middle, 4 ounces of English angora, which is pretty compacted but I don't think it's badly felted. If I find felted bits, I can use it for needle felting. It was only four bucks.

Now I've got to get to knittin' and spinnin'!

World Wide Spin in Public Day!

We did it again! World Wide Spin in Public Day at the IKE Box, hosted by the Salem Area Ravelers was a success! I only wish I'd gotten more pictures.

We had a raffle table, with lots of donations, including fiber and silky Socks that Rock donated by Blue Moon Fiber Arts, and yarn and dyed silk hankies from Three Fates Yarn:

And speaking of Three Fates Yarn, Stephania set up a booth to sell her luscious creations:

We had spinning going on, as well as knitting, beaded crochet, and drum carding going on.

With special guest appearance by Omar, all of four weeks old and bottle fed since he was an abandoned newborn:

Omar says, "Heck yeah, we're having fun here!"

Bridges of Marion County Scarf - My first for-sale design!

Hoorah! I finally did it! I've got a PDF pattern up for sale on Ravelry! With some good photography thanks to my hubby, a lovely day for taking photos on the local footbridge over the Willamette, finally finding a knitting stitch font that I liked so I could work out the chart out in Excel, and then finally coming up with a layout and set of pattern instructions that I liked, Bridges of Marion County Scarf is ready to go.

It's a lovely, long scarf knitted from light fingering-weight yarn and designed to show off yarns with long color runs. I used a handspun silk/wool blend from Dicentra Designs (Aventurine colorway) and spun it as a chain-plyed 3-ply to preserve the colors. (Dicentra dyes yarn as well as fiber in her various colorways.)

Because some people love charts and some people love written directions for lace, the pattern has both. Can't beat that. I've arranged the pretty pictures mostly on their own pages, except for a close-up of the edging that I put on the page with the chart, so that people have a choice of printing everything out, pictures and all, or printing out just a page of text or just the chart. Y'all know how expensive printer ink is.

I got a lot of admiration for this scarf at Sock Summit, so I thought I really had to get it written up and out there. So, world, here it is.

Ravelry even provides a nice little buy now link. Pretty cool.