monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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Patsy likes Doritoes.
Saturday was a big fun day for Rachel and I at the Fiber Art Fair! I was so tired from not getting enough sleep the day before that when Rachel woke me up, I was so crabby that I almost didn't want to go.
Kim wanted to go to Rockford with Catseh, and I was nervous about them going alone, so Rich said he would drive them there. They went off to do their shopping - buying manga at Borders - and Rachel and I toddled off to look at yarn!
The same vendors are there every year, and I'm so happy to see them! They bring lots of roving (for spinning), and some of them bring other items, like soap or baskets, and there is lots of yarn, some of it handspun, some is handpainted, and a couple of vendors bring books and accessories for needlecrafts.
There is always a silent auction, so we looked over all the items and bid on some of those - a bag of handspun yarn and a scale. There was a copy of Folk Mittens on the silent auction table, but I saw that someone I know had the current high bid, and I like her, so I didn't try to outbid her.
We watched a woman who was using a drop spindle to spin yarn in a way we'd never seen before. She was spinning with the spindle held sideways instead of dropped down to hang in mid-air, and it was so clever that we stood and watched her and asked questions. Oddly, she didn't invite Rachel to try it, as a lot of people do, and she didn't have any spindles like hers for sale. She said that she and the woman who had taught her to spin that way were the only ones who knew how to do it, and Rachel thought maybe she was trying to keep it a secret! We bought a spindle like hers at another booth and Rachel, who has used a drop spindle before, figure out how to spin sideways later at home. It wasn't hard, and I'm sure other people have figured it out over the years. Drop spindles have been in use throughout history, and have even been found in Egyptian tombs, so I'm sure every variation of how to spin with them has been invented by now.
We bought soap that smells like cinnamon, or maybe it's bayberry, we bought some other soap that smells like strawberries, we bought yarn for a shawl, yarn for socks, some wonderful gray wool/mohair blend, and a copy of Folk Mittens.
Then we had to head for home and get ready for a little party Rachel was having at our house in the evening. I went to bed and tried to get a nap for a while. Rachel brought her spinning up to my room to show me that she'd figured out how to spin sideways, and then the phone rang - it was someone calling to say that we'd won both of the items we bid on in the silent auction! (Rich says it isn't really winning if you have to pay for the stuff, but he's wrong.)
I went back to sleep after that and managed to sleep for a couple of hours before I had to come to work.
There is a certain smell that the Fiber Festival has, a smell of wool and handmade soap! I could smell it later on my hands when I was at work, and I was knitting another beanie with Encore yarn, but wishing I had some lovely wool-smelling yarn to knit socks with.
4:30 a.m. - 2006-04-24
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