Monday, March 13, 2023

Carolina Fiber Fest 2023

 Fiber Fest at the State Fairgrounds again (in the nice, large expo hall, yay). And once again, shared parking with 2 other events. One, if someone hadn't told me they were there, I wouldn't have known about them. OTOH, the other group has a subset of 'we have an RV, who cares about parking spaces'. 

Most of them with RVs are not like this. They park in the camping area, which admittedly is not particularly close to their event location. There's some though, that take up 2-10 (and no, that is not a mistake, I counted) parking spaces. Which again, is okay if no one else is using the lot. Like someone who parks their car over 4 spots at the far end of a lot where it's completely empty, if it's not disrupting other people, then who cares.

And that is why my friend and I arrived at 7 am for an event in which the doors open at 9. We did need to be there enough before 9 to get our tables set up, but if it weren't for the parking issues, we would have aimed for 8 am. 


 We were towards the back, near some of the classrooms. We were also near this display about flax and flax spinning (picture is only part of display).


There were 2 spinning wheels, some fabric (both recent make and vintage), sample of linsey woolsey tape, 3 linen stricks,  and flax in different stages of processing. There were also brochures for a book on homegrown flax and cotton.

I also bought a couple mini-skeins of linen yarn to try it for tatting. I bought some burgundy and black. I'll need to be careful of slubs, but it tats pretty well. The hanks are DK weight, so about size 5 for tatting, I think.

 Here's the edging sample I did.

 Pattern from New Dimensions in Tatting by To de Haan-van Beek

I saw lots of fiber friends; other members of Tri-Tatters, Sir Walter Lacers, weaving group, machine knitting, etc. I also saw Danielle, who I haven't seen since she moved to Texas. I also met her wife, Jen, who I only know from Danielle's FB posts. They've moved back to the east coast.

I also bought a nalbinding needle and then won some wool yarn! How about them odds. I only bought 1 ticket in the drawing. And funny enough, while I was up there getting my 'here's the cert for you to claim your prize', the vendor came up to see if the prize they'd offered had been claimed. I didn't have to search for their booth, they lead me right there.

I finished Jane Eborall's Tat It And See, although I used 2 different colors. I want to do this in light green and in grey, too. For reasons.

 


I've also been playing around with Mandala by Nami Art Patterns



You can't tell from the pictures, but the top one is size 20 and the lower one is size 40.

I also took some of my bits to mend a skirt. It's cotton gauze, so I stabilized the holes and then sewed tatting over them.


 And of course, glued flowers, etc to a card.



We play the Pathfinder game again this weekend (crossed fingers) and our 5e game continues. 

In the 5e game, we learned what poisoned our oldest sister (cousin for 1 player). We did some local investigating to see if there's a cure available locally and tried to get some information on who created the poison. We did learn a few things, but we had to go to another town, on the recommendation of someone we contacted, to someone who might know more. 

Cousin (PC is 16, player is my age) continues to underestimate my PC, possibly because of jealousy. My PC went to college in the capital, is beautiful, and cosmopolitan. She (PC) is the smartest and most beautiful person the room; she says so. 

Please note, the player is a good friend and it's all in fun.

I can't believe we had sleet/snow yesterday. Last year, we had snow (no accumulation) as we were leaving the Fiber Fest. And it's supposed to freeze tonight.




No comments: