Sunday, April 17, 2016

DFW Fiber Fest

Has it really been two weeks since I was in Dallas?  How time flies.  The DFW Fiber Fest was a lot of fun and it felt great to get back into teaching knitting again. I taught a class in Intarsia, one of my favorite techniques.  I'm looking forward to teaching more in the future.

Irving Convention Center
The Fiber Fest was actually in Irving, just a short distance from Dallas.  As a matter of fact, you could see the Dallas skyline from the Convention Center.  It was quite warm (81°F/27°C), warmer than I'm used to in April and I loved seeing the flowers, especially the Blue Bonnets along many of the roadsides.


The Market was excellent - so many vendors that I'd never heard of before, many of them indy dyers.

Just a small part of the Market, before it got busy.
Some yarn did follow me home.


I have a Travel Afghan and I make new block with a yarn that will represent the trip to me.

I was torn between two skeins from two different vendors.  One was by Must Stash from San Antonio, TX.  This yarn was red, white and blue as in the US and the Texas state flags.  It also had the DFW Fiber Fest logo on the label.  The color is:  "Elevens - 2016 Fiber Fest".  Eleven refers to the fact that this is the 11th year of the Fiber Fest.

It would have been perfect but for one thing.  Despite how the colors look in the picture, they are actually much lighter.  I found it impossible to take a picture that represent the colors accurately.

The blue, in particular, was off.  It was more of a medium sky blue, or medium baby blue, rather than the rich blue you see on the flag.

The red was also a little on the light side but not off as much as the blue.  If I hadn't found another suitable yarn, I would have used this one.  Instead, I'll make a pair of socks with the skein.

At first glance I thought it was cotton, but it's 75% merino and 25% nylon and will produce 6 uneven stripes when knitted.

The other yarn that I found was dyed just for the Fiber Fest by Knitting Rose Yarns out of Keller, TX, near Fort Worth.


The color is "Texas Wildflowers".  It made a nice addition to my Travel Afghan, hex #10.  I like the way the colors pop on the background of green.  The yarn is 80% Superwash Merino Wool, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon.  There might be enough remaining for socks, although I might have to do the heels and/or toes in a complementary color.


Another yarn was calling my name.  I don't buy much green so this was slightly outside of the norm for me, but the greens were so lovely and the gradients moved perfectly from one skein to another. This is from Miss Babs, who wasn't at the market this year.  Her yarn was being sold by the folks in the Signature Needles booth.  This color set is called "Draco".  It's 100% Superwash Merino Wool, 133 yards per mini-skein, 6 shades.  I don't know what I'll make yet but I'm thinking about a yoke pullover.  That's subject to change, of course!


I managed to resist the MadelineTosh yarns, even though I like it lot.  There were so many beautiful options that I would have had a had time picking just one, anyway.  Besides, I'm currently using it as the background for my Talavera Dreams afghan.  The booth was large and the funny thing is that every one of the sales ladies (at least 3 or 4) claimed that her name was Madeline.  Of course, I believe them!


There was an key note speaker at the gathering on Friday night, Sivia Harding.  I've met Sivia a few times and did some test knitting for her a couple of years ago.  Her talk, "Mending Through The Ages" was enlightening.  I didn't know that there was so much more to the topic than fixing a hole in a sock.


I was a student at the Fiber Fest too, taking a class in photographing fibers from one of the Shibaguys.  Good class.

The weekend went by much too quickly, but since I'd never been to Dallas before (I don't count changing planes at the airport on an earlier trip) I stayed on for a couple of days to do some sightseeing.  More on that next time.

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