(warning: this post contains several serious fiber geek moments)

Yes,it was my first fiber festival.  No, that doesn’t explain the random use of jazz hands.  I don’t know what that was.  But..I was stoked.  And the extravaganza was everything I hoped for.  My goals were as follows:

1. Meet local farmers so I can buy my fiber from Washington.

2. Purchase at least one awesome fleece.

3. Stock up on goodies from local fiber artists.

I had such a great time!  I’ve read a little bit about fiber shows, so I timed it to get there about 15 minutes after it opened.  I don’t have enough experience with this to know what I want and grab it, and that sounds pretty stressful.  Waiting was risky but more pleasant.  By the time I got there about 2/3rds of the fleeces were gone, but I still managed to snag two blue ribbon fleeces!!  One was a beautiful grey, brown romney/dorset and the other an amazing bag of locks from a Gotland lamb.  Both were about 4.5 lbs.  Really truly amazing to have the chance to look around and buy like that.  I loved it.

I’ve washed about 1.5 lbs of the lamb locks… check this out:

And, truly dorky but awesome moment:  Sarah Anderson, from my favorite spinning book The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs was there.  I had the chance to tell her how much I appreciated her book and take a dorky fan picture.  She’s really, really nice and I was so impressed with how she was talking with people who stopped by her table.

End of dorky moments.

Wow.  From jazz hands that never should have happened to a fan pic.  You just never know how a day is going to unfold, huh?

Spin on!