Wool Gathering 2012

Every year there is this festival called the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs at Young's Dairy Farm. It's a cute event where fiber enthusiasts can get their geek on about Llamas, Alpaca, different Sheep varieties and my all time favorite of the Angora rabbits. Aside from there different weaving guilds are there to represent as well as 3 tents of dealers selling everything from raw fibers to spin and kettle dyed yarns.

 I was sucked into the beautiful assortments of roving and  picked up a few balls which I now need to spin..... just another craft task I didn't really need to get back into.

 Alpacas being friendly and nonchalant as people tried to chirp to get their attentions. These fellas stayed put right in the middle just out of arms reach.

 The terrible lighting inside of the tents due to the red stripes. I'm sure it looks festive from the outside but the interior is a little abysmal with the red glow.

Still gorgeous wares from a myriad of vendors such as Creatively Dyed Yarn, whom I am always a sucker for. 

Various Rigid Heddle looms and spinning wheels. All of which I have no place for in my home so I was able to safely navigate away from them. I've decided spinning is one of the crafts I can do but I don't want to spend more of my time on when I could be tatting or knitting. You gotta pick and choose your fiber art battles and crafts.

Of course there were angora bunnies! I was said I didn't see as many of them as I had in years past. I think there were only 2 vendors that had bunnies and none of them seemed to have more then 2 or 3 out. There was a display of Angora rabbits in the Alpaca and sheep shearing tent but I felt bad since they were all crammed in together in these small cages.

 The ranges of raw fibers at this event are always astonishing. There is a vendor from Granville, Ohio called Lucky Cat Craft who had some angora's and silk that felt like you were touching a cloud.

 Being the enabler friend that I am, I was getting my friend Laura of Ajumama Food Truck to try her hand at weaving. I'm hoping she'll join me in the weaving studio at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center with Pat Bullen as the teacher.

It was great to see some bobbin lace up close and personal and as in a way where I could touch it. If I hadn't started down the shuttle tatting route I would of tried my hand at bobbin lace. I'm a bit glad I didn't because at least shuttle tatting is portable where as I don't see this pillow, pins and bobbins fitting inside my tote bag very easily.

To end it all we had to chow down on the squeaky cheese curds, especially since this entire event went down on a dairy farm.

I know my blogging has been spotty to put it nicely but I am working on getting back to it. My studio is mostly settled into now and so are some of my plans for the yarn pop-up shop. Now I just need to work on making it through this holiday and hopefully putting in my first order for Yarn It & Haberdashery!