Skip to main content

A Woolly Weekend

The Farmer and I spent the weekend enjoying the Michigan Fiber Festival. We met with old friends and made some new ones. Both of us enrolled in a couple of classes (spinning, wet felting, dyeing, and carding wool). The Farmer entered five skeins of his handspun yarn in the skein competition, and ended up with white and red ribbons--and one blue! Amazing. 

During our time there, we did some stealth marketing. Both of us had several small plastic bags containing our business card with samples of our yarn attached and a sample of our roving. We passed these out to folks who were into spinning and dyeing. We'll see what comes of it.

Saturday while I met with new etsy friends, The Farmer cranked socks in a friend's vendor booth. A lot of folks stopped to talk and watch. Fiber people and mechy-techy people alike are fascinated with the sock knitting machines. 

And since I forgot the camera, you will just have to imagine all these wonderful scenes. 

After our busy weekend, I'm ready to dedicate this week to planning for our homeschool year. I'll be posting each evening what I accomplished each day, to help keep me on task.

Comments

  1. Sounds like you had a lot of fun. :) I haven't made it to the festival for the last two years--hopefully I'll get there next year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was at the festival both days, mostly at our demonstration table (the West Michigan Lace Group). But I did get out to shop and watch the sock machine. They are so cool.

    Every so often they have someone with a shoelace machine - I like that one, too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's a lot of fun, Liz. Seems like there was a constant Ravelry Meet-up somewhere.

    Alwen, too bad I didn't know you were there! I've stopped and talked with lace makers other years, but not this year. Was the sock machine person The Farmer? He was in a vendor booth on Saturday afternoon--and later we found a group of three off in a side building.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bloggy Giveaway--Now Closed

**This bloggy giveaway is now closed** Thanks to all who participated and gave such great comments. Janette is the winner of the $15 gift certificate to our etsy store . I'm participating in the Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival . Click the link to go to the carnival where you can enter to win literally hundreds of things. The good news is that even if you have no time to play on the computer trying to win hundreds of things, you can still enter to win one thing right here. This week, I will be giving away a $15 gift certificate to be used toward the purchase of an item in my etsy shop . This contest is open to residents of the United States or Canada only. The winner will receive free shipping on whatever item they choose. Items in my etsy shop include handwoven rugs, wool yarns and roving from our farm, and the ever-popular cotton dishcloth! To be entered in this wonderful drawing, you must go to the etsy shop and look around a bit. Then come back here and type a comment that

Haying 101

A few posts back, "deep end of the loom" (love that name!) asked me to tell a bit more about the haying process. If you want my version, read on. If you'd like to read the official wikipedia version, click here . Haying happens in three steps: cutting, raking and baling. This process takes several days, as the hay must be dry when baled. Moist hay molds and heats up and has even been known to spontaneously combust, burning down the barn. Gotta have dry hay. This first photo is of our haybine. The haybine not only cuts the hay, it also crimps each piece of long grass in several places, to allow for faster drying. We usually cut hay in the early afternoon, when the dew is gone. When we're done, long row of cut grass lie waiting. The hay is allowed to dry for two to three days, depending on wind and sun conditions. Obviously, the more wind and sun the days hold, the quicker the hay will dry. When we feel like the hay is nearly dry, we go out with the rake. There are diff

This Giveaway Is Now Closed!

Today starts a giveaway at Farming in the Shade! I am happy to contribute this complete hat kit (needles not included) to someone who has a knitting obsession and a small person in their life. Here are the rules (contest open to US or Canada residents only): Giveaway ends May 1 at 9 p.m. EST. Winner will be announced by Sunday, May 3. Enter by posting a comment on this blog post. Tell me something about your knitting--who taught you to knit, your favorite yarn, the coolest thing you ever knitted. Make sure you leave contact information! Earn extra entries by: 1) Following me on twitter. (If you don't know what twitter is, don't worry. It's another way to waste your time on the computer.)  Add a comment here so I will count it as one entry. 2) Tweeting this giveaway (no more than once daily). Add a comment here so I know you did it. 3) Blog about this giveaway. Add a comment (with link) here so I can go visit your blog. 4) Follow or subscribe to this blog (or tell me if have