Farming in the shade

This past weekend we headed up to northern lower Michigan (a long drive from us, I might add!) for the Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool Festival. Even though it is a lot of work to get ready for these shows, and the timing of this one is particularly difficult, we make the effort. We enjoy getting together with friends who love wool. Some of these friends we only see once a year at this festival.  Our daughter came with us to attend shearing school. She spent the day listening to instruction, watching others shear sheep, and shearing 7 lambs herself. It was a wonderful opportunity, and shows the great commitment of the existing Michigan shearers to passing on the skills of their trade to young people. She enjoyed herself at the shearing school, and it was nice to have her along for the weekend. We asked the vendor chair for a double booth this year, to give us a little more space. They were kind enough to give us the ONLY double booth with a barn board backdrop, fo...

We do one (1) fiber festival a year. This hardly makes us gypsies, but I like to dream. Other festivals land at bad times (actually, this one isn't landing at a great time, either) or are too far away or already have 4,000 vendors selling exactly the same thing as we sell. But the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival is small, charming, and held on the grounds of the lovely Ogemaw County Fair Grounds. In the fall. What's not to love? Come and see us this weekend. It's worth the drive. You can take your wheel or your spindle and sit a spell with us and visit. The Farmer will be demonstrating sock knitting on his antique circular sock machine during the day on Sunday.

We don't do a lot of craft shows and fiber festivals. Three each year, to be exact. Maybe two next year. One show we really enjoy is the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival . It's fun to see friends again, and this festival really emphasizes the sheep part of wool production, which we appreciate. Here's what our camper looked like after we packed for the festival. I suppose it could have been worse. We had about 8-10 totes of goodies and several bags of roving/top. We talked with one vendor who had 30 totes of yarn stuffed in her camper. As always, I heard a lot of stories from weavers, as well as from weavers' children and grandchildren and neighbors. Rag rugs bring stories out of people. We tried out a new booth configuration (hanging yarn from dowels between the black wire cubes). I like it. One person, after reading our sign about "Polypay Wool", asked if that meant that there was polyester added into the wool. (sigh) Think it's too late to get th...

The blog silence has been deafening, hasn't it? Here's a quicky update with no pictures. We've started harvesting pinto beans. The new-to-us combine has been sadly neglected in its previous life. So even after 7-8 days of solid fixing, we harvest a bit, take it back into the shop to fix the latest thing we've found, and then harvest a bit more. The up side of that is the guys are getting a great idea of the inner workings of this Case IH combine. That'll come in handy over the long haul. I've been buried in paperwork at my day job. Which means I haven't been able to do justice in the getting-ready-for-the-festival department. Ah well. We'll take what's ready and hand out lots of business cards. And enjoy the beautiful fairgrounds in Ogemaw County, home to the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival . Come and visit us, if you're close. Take your wheel or your knitting and sit and visit a while. Saturday's a bit busier, and Sunday's more ...

We'll be there! Stop by and visit. More information here .

I took my camera along, fully intending to use it liberally. I guess I was busy, because these two are exactly half of the photos I took during the festival. Our booth... We did alright, though it's always nice to dream of selling it all. But we had fun and are slowly getting our feet back under us after our busy weekend...

The Farmer recently spun a 3-ply from our Polypay roving. Last weekend, he entered it in the skein competition at the Michigan Fiber Festival. He won not just one, but two (!) ribbons for his entry. Wow... In other Fiber Festival news, I enjoyed talking with friends and meeting new people (some of them "imaginary" friends from the internet). I oohed and aahed over a lot of luscious fiber, and bought a few things to take home with me. Fiber festival is always a great time! Though next year they could order some cooler weather. It was downright drippy this past weekend...

This weekend is the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan. While we are not vending, we plan to go and enjoy the weekend as usual. If you're going, too, make sure you stop and introduce yourself to us. Look for The Farmer, who will likely be spending some quality time cranking socks. He usually wears his fire department t-shirt when he's out and about, though he has been known to choose his American Lamb t-shirt for sheepy occasions such as this...

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 re...