The Wool Gathering

Sunday I dragged poor Jim to The Wool Gathering…a little fiber festival just north of Yellow Springs. He is such a good sport! It was a beautiful day and since we haven’t been able to golf or bike ride (which would have been our first choices by far on such a day, but we haven’t been able to lately due to previously mentioned medical issues for both of us) this festival seemed like a reasonable alternative.

I’ve said in the past that I would never start spinning…I don’t need another expensive hobby, takes time away from knitting, blah, blah, blah. Seeing all the different fibers and many spinners in action though may have made me change my mind. After seeing the prices on the raw fiber and rovings, I think I could actually save money by spinning my own.:rofl: That’s a good one, right? If I amortize the cost of a wheel over a year or two, surely this could work in my favor. Instead of just jumping right in though (which I LOVE to do) I decided to be sensible and join the Cincinnati Weaver’s Guild instead. They are an organization of all things fiber and members can rent spinning wheels by the month for a VERY reasonable fee. Hopefully, I’ll try it and then get over it.

I saw Alpaca’s for the first time in person. Not quite as cute as in pictures, but cute enough. And the fiber…the fiber is amazing. I have knit with Alpaca before but feeling the roving or raw wool is awesome. It is so light and soft…ahhhhhhh.

The festival itself was nice to check out once, but I doubt whether I’ll ever go back, unless I start spinning. All of the hand spun yarn was pretty expensive…not too many deals to be found. So of course, I didn’t get any yarn, right? HA! I scoff at your silliness! Haven’t you never read my blog before? I have a serious affliction…can’t-stop-buying-yarn-itis. This actually was a bit of a deal…$25 a pound for hand dyed, hand spun wool and a cotton/rayon blend.

I also won’t return unless The Wool Gathering changes their seeing eye dog policy. :ban:According to Julie, the festival turned away people with service dogs. BAD, BAD festival people!

Another thing…I finally remembered to bring my camera to a weekend activity. Now that I am a “blog person” I constantly find myself places thinking, “I can’t believe I didn’t bring my camera! It would be great to post pictures of this when I write about it on the blog.” However, I did not do a good job with the photo journalism on this outing. I felt way too self conscious taking pictures in the middle of all those people. Strange, huh? Well bear with me; I’m sure soon I’ll be taking pictures with reckless abandon. If you want to see some great pictures, check out Lisa’s post. She did a much better job with the wool gathering picture documentation.