I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since I last posted. Oh wait, I can. I have been unbelievably busy at work, and then all my crafting energy has been going towards the Wicked Sweet Triathlon of crafting in celebration of Den Of Angels’ seventh(!) anniversary. There is, of course, a blackout on posting entries elsewhere, or publicizing any identifying info, so I’ve had to keep everything secret! The final entries were submitted yesterday; voting will go on for a few days, and then, then I can tell you what I’ve been up to all month!
One thing I can tell you about, though, is the awesome Fibrations festival I went to last Sunday. It was a new fibre festival that was apparently pulled together in just a few months! There were vendors, demonstrations, fun music, and loads and loads of people! I brought my parasol, but unfortunately a lot of the time it was just in the way. I kept putting it down so I wouldn’t put anybody’s eye out, and as a result I got a bit sunburnt.
But check out my sweet score! More, including info about what these gorgeous items are, under the jump.
There was a loonie-toonie auction to cover the costs of this year’s festival and raise funds for next, and although I didn’t win the spindle + spinning lessons I was most hoping for, I did stick around for the general raffle of awesome and won a super sweet enamel-on-steel bookmark made by Margot Page as well as a fascinating piece of fibre art by Monique Desjardins that I plan one day to have gracing the wall of a craft room.
I spent about an hour walking around and around the vendor stalls. Everyone had such beautiful stuff! There was a lot of unspun fibre that really really made me want to learn to spin…maybe this fall I’ll take one of the eminently reasonably priced lessons in drop spindling at Knotty By Nature. And yes, it has to be drop spindling – spinning wheels are somewhat appealing, especially the Ashford Joy and similar space-efficient marvels of engineering that I had the pleasure of investigating at Fibrations, but somehow when I imagine spinning it’s got to be right there in my hands. I just have a thing for low-tech options, and I admit that I like things that move a little slower.
There was one stall I kept coming back to again and again, and after about the third time, I finally got up the courage to talk prices. As I picked out this gorgeous riot of pinks from Kattikloo Fibres on Saltspring island, I chatted with Fiona about her gorgeous yarn and knitting non-sock items with sock yarn. I was thinking I wanted this gorgeous pink up near my face, she was musing about cowl-type neckwarmers and how cool it would be to make something along those lines that came right down over the shoulders like a capelet. Having just received What Would Madame DeFarge Knit for my birthday, I was thinking of something along the lines of Ms. Prynne, only with buttons and carried on a little lower in the shoulders. We’ll see.
Another stall I had somehow passed over on my first couple of rounds (yes, I kept going around and around until I was almost dizzy with looking at vendors), I finally stopped at and immediately saw this fabulous laceweight.
How could I miss you on my first round, Everything Old? Especially with Em’s delightful electric blue hair? Your colours are so gorgeous, so exactly what I love…I could have blown my budget at your stall alone! But I was good, I just got two. For now.
These are both going to be shawls. I’m pretty sure the grey will be another, larger Percy. I think I’ve said this before, but I adore the pattern and the yarn I made my original with, but I followed the directions for the shawlette and for me, it’s just too small. Oh no, I will just have to knit it again! I must be insane, because as much work as it was, I really enjoyed the frost flower patterned-every-row section. It was like calisthenics for my brain. So that’s my plan for the grey (or is it blue…it’s a bit of both). The purple, I haven’t decided yet, but I know there are a few suitable candidates in my queue and faves. Once I’ve enshawled the majority of each skein, I plan to use the leftovers for some stranded doll knitting since they look so fabulous together (and I happen not to like striped shawls very much). Yay!
I didn’t take any pictures on site, so no record of the fellow I met who was working away carving buttons from a cedar branch he found while working in the great outdoors. He’s the same person who sells wood buttons at Knotty By Nature and it was fascinating to watch how he did it (and think “I could do that!”…yeah, down the road when I have the time…). So cool. I also checked out The Linen Project‘s stall and learned about the process of turning flax into fabric. The production of linen has fascinated me for a long time, even more once The Balkan Babes learned the Croatian song “Sejala Sam,” in which the singer calls out “On that fine day, I sowed the flax; I reaped it; I spun it; I wore it.” I need to learn how to spin and spin flax into linen, it’s my dearest dream. And there were lavender-chocolate cupcakes and awesome needle-felted fairies by NG Designs up in Duncan and I learned how to make super cool felted treasure eggs to put lavender sachets or similar precious things and it was awesome and everyone lived happily ever after and I have to go eat lunch now the end.
