Festival of Fiber, Powhatan, Virginia

It was a glorious day with the weather sunny in the high 60s, low 70s at Powhatan's first Festival of Fiber.  Here's what Aimee and I saw, among other things. 

First, watching a sheep dog work these three sheep. 

This dog seemed to love herding the sheep around.  The sheep, on the other hand, were not amused! 

There were goats, alpacas and more sheep around the field.  Lots of fun to see these animals when all you normally see are dogs and cats. 

A month old kid.  He had tiny horns growing -- they are the light spots you can see in this picture. 

A sheep being hand sheared.  I bet he felt good to get rid of his heavy fur coat. 

For some reason this guy looks like a clown to me! Maybe it's the puffy hair on his head and the rest of him shorn. Lots of alpacas were visiting at the Festival.  And, lots of alpaca wool for sale. 

Here are an alpaca before shearing and his friend after. 

Another pair with and without hair.  We were able to get quite close to these two but they weren't interested in having people pet them.  I love how white the left one is. 

I'm guessing this is a ram but remember, I'm mostly a suburbs type.

Eventually we got a bit overheated and stopped for drinks.  Notice the name of this place -- Carpe Donut.  The donuts looked really good but we were good and didn't get any. 

And, just in case you think it was all sheep and alpacas.  Not at all.  Here is one of the vendors, Unplanned Peacock Studio and a glorious selection of yarn.  

Aimee bought several skeins of yarn from various vendors.  I bought yarn for socks from Wandering Wool. It is a wonderful deep red/cranberry hand dyed super wash wool.  I hope to try knitting two at a time socks with circular needles. 

I felt a lot of the alpaca yarns which are super soft.  But, I didn't buy any.  I did find a great sweater pattern but will hold off on buying either the pattern or any yarn for it for the time being.  Maybe next year I'll get some hand dyed yarn for it.  

I am looking forward to next years Festival of Fiber.  It was much smaller than Howard County, Maryland's Sheep and Wool Festival that I attended years ago. But, how can you argue with a festival 10 minutes from home? Hum, just thought, I haven't made up the yarn I bought at the Sheep and Wool Festival, maybe 10 years ago?  Maybe it would work with the sweater pattern I really liked.  

That's it for today.  I have been quilting but wanted to share all this wool business! 

Happy Quilting All! 

A Great Mail Day

We have recently gone on a mini internet shopping spree so seeing a box in front of the garage wasn't a surprise.  But the box that arrived yesterday was unexpected.  And, fun!  No, no free fabric... think one step beyond free fabric to free blocks!  Yes, it was a box of blocks from Pam, a member of the FCQ Equilter's group with me.  And it held a great number of blocks for me to use in my next charity quilts.  Yes, I do mean quilts!  You might recognize the block as I've been going crazy recently making them. 

You start out with 2 big squares and end up with two wonderful blocks.  I think Pam went wild.  And, I thank her as does the neonatal intensive care units these will go to as finished quilts.  

This group has been going for quite a while although I joined a couple of years after it originated.  There are six of us and we all had been members of Faithful Circle Quilters when we lived in Columbia, Maryland.  Just a point though -- I maintain my membership and get to FCQ events a couple of times a year.  I'm looking forward to the retreat at the beginning of June! 

We reside mostly on the east coast with Chicago and New Zealand represented. We are each assigned a two month period where we tell the members what blocks we want made for us. And then we wait until we are showered with the blocks of our choice.  And, sometimes it is just one or two and sometimes it is a lot of blocks. There's a reason I pick super easy blocks usually!  It's been really fun as we've had a lot of differing techniques and blocks requested.  I have been pushing red, white and blues for Quilts Of Valor and the like.  

So this time I left it up to the gals as to whether they wanted to continue to do red, white and blue or whether they wanted to do fun kids prints.  Pam did both.  I'm sure I have enough blocks of the kids prints to make one or possibly two baby quilts.  Yea! 

I'll have a lot to do over the next few months getting these quilts done.  Hum, I might just make kits for the baby quilt to take on retreat.  No think sewing! Perfect for a retreat. 

I was totally surprised when this cute little hat was included.  Pam is a member of the Carey Blanketeers, that is part of Project Linus. Too cute. 

And here it is being modeled by the paper towel holder! 

Tomorrow Aimee and I will be attending the first, hopefully, annual Festival of Fiber  in beautiful, downtown Powhatan.  If you love wool, of all kinds, come on out.  The weather is going to be gorgeous.  You can see demos of sheep and alpaca shearing, felting, an antique sock knitting machine, sheep dogs doing there thing and lots more.  It looks to be a great event.  Oh, and did I mention, VENDORS?  I do have a yarn stash of sorts.  Not as much as my quilt fabric but some pretty nice yarn and some everyday stuff too for that matter.  I'm hoping to add some interesting yarn to the collection and even better if it has a purpose to go with it!  Come join us! 

I leave you this image of Tiger being swept away by the Roomba.  Oops, I guess I didn't get all the dog toys up before I started it.  No animals were hurt in the making of this picture. 

Happy Quilting All!