fiber twist north

Last weekend, we were at the Fiber Twist at our favorite farmers' market. This Saturday, we rolled northward nice and early. Destination: Franklin County (Massachusetts) Fiber Twist. We shared a booth with our friend, Leslie Wind, whose beautiful metal shawl pins and cable needle necklaces were a nice complement to Scott's glass work.

Leah was tickled by the whole thing, of course, but especially by the opportunity to wear her Sylvi sweater/coat in Twist Collective's fashion show. She otherwise spent the day flitting among the knitters, participating in charity knitting sessions, gathering ideas, soaking up colors, and doing metalwork with Leslie. She was also working on her Swallowtail shawl again, as apparently it's been in a time-out long enough.

Beads made of beads. Must find tutorial.
In between selling Scott's glass stuff, I enjoyed a steady stream of knitting friends I know from other places, folks I had just met but felt like I could talk to for days, and loving all the incredible things they were wearing -- beaded, felted, knitted, crocheted, woven, and on and on.

No lack of inspiration or ideas after a day at an event like this!

Leah made a point of visiting Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, to tell her she finally found what she thinks will be the perfect pattern for the gorgeous red and black hand-dyed yarn Gail gave to Leah last year. They had a good chat and the next thing Leah knows, Gail is handing her this awesome skein of yarn to go turn into something fabulous!

It looks like blue shades on my monitor, but it's purples, from hazy gray-purples to full-on grape, with itty bitty iridescent sequins spun into it. Incredibly beautiful, especially for a kiddo who is recently falling back in love with knitting lacy patterns. This might become a Shetland Triangle or a Forest Canopy Shawl. Gail has a book coming out this winter and it's bound to be a great resource with stunningly dyed examples.

Home again in time to scoop up Jesse and head out to Pipes in the Valley, a Celtic music festival in Hartford, so we could see performances by the Wicked Tinkers and Gaelic Storm. Then home to bed, with another big day to follow.

recommended daily allowance

Yesterday was a blustery, dreary, gray day. Remedy? Hook up with a friend first thing in the morning and head north to the Franklin County Fiber Twist, where we exceeded our recommended daily doses of color, friendship, and inspiration!

It all started with a hooked rug display -- finished rugs, works in progress, kits and supplies, knowledgeable and fun folks. This art form keeps popping up in our lives and it's soooo tempting to give it a try. I don't even want to start with the wool fabric collection and strip-making, but didja know you can do it with yarns too? Hm. ;-)

Then into the room of vendors of other wonderful wooly goodness. Ran smack dab into our friend, Leslie Wind, whose cable needle necklace, a gift from Leslie, Leah was wearing because she's using it for the current cabled neckwarmer-in-progress.

There were supplies for fiber arts of all kinds, demos, finished items, patterns, kits. Ooh, the colors, the textures!

We bumped into a lot of folks we know as we wandered the booths and met more along the way. An incredible number of people recognize Leah at these events and stop to talk to her, ask about her current WIP (handwarmers w/ a sideways stranded cuff, a design she's making up on the fly), or compliment some piece of knitwear that she has on for the day.

For years, Gail, the Kangaroo Dyer, has made a point of chatting with Leah whenever we stop in at Webs, where Gail works. Leah must've made an impression on her during some visit long ago because Gail never fails to recognize her and strike up a conversation.

As I was paying Gail's husband for some dreamy handpainted roving at their booth yesterday, Gail suddenly turned and handed Leah these two huge, GORGEOUS skeins of laceweight yarn in shades of deep cranberry red to black, along with a coordinating skein of black w/ red undertones...something fuzzy...mohair?...again, GORGEOUS...and says, "I want you to have these!" The Goob, as you can imagine, was blown away by the kindness and just happens to also be ga-ga over the yarn.

By the time we left the Fiber Twist, my bag looked like this...

There were also some other bags of fluff hanging from the outside of my backpack. OMG, the colors.

Inspired by Gail's dyeing demo at the Fiber Twist and others we've seen in the past, we popped in at Webs on the way home. While browsing the dye colors, another customer struck up a conversation with us and offered some suggestions. Her colorful fingers identified her as an avid dyer. She sells as DK Knits and it's a good thing she dyes for a living because her enthusiasm for it is contagious. She bubbled over with ideas for blending the dye colors we were buying and helpful hints for achieving certain goals.

Dropped our friend off back at her house, swung by our house to pick up Jesse, then to get nephew Zach and off to see a performance of Willie Wonka, in which a family of friends has been actively involved. It was a colorful, fun, clever performance that we all enjoyed immensely. Saw my sister's Dominican Republic vacation pics, schemed some Halloween costume ideas, and helped my mom learn to do magic loop on a wee bunny she's making to tuck into the chest pocket of a sweet dress she's knitting for a friend's daughter. A short night of sleep and I had to laugh this morning when I saw that one of the DK Knits lines is Wonka-inspired semi-solid/tonal colorways. Yum!

Recommended daily allowance of fibery goodness achieved!