Today's Artist:
Sheila Rovelstad Designs
Sheila's Knits with Sticks website showcases her gorgeous semi-solid dyed yarns like these...
Not only does Sheila create fabulous colorful sock yarns, she also makes stitch markers! These dangling stitch markers are made with semi-precious stones and crystals.
Sheila is generously donating a skein of her yarn and matching stitch marker for today's contest.
Contest details - along with more of Jody's sheepy pictures:Sheila Rovelstad Designs
Sheila's Knits with Sticks website showcases her gorgeous semi-solid dyed yarns like these...
Not only does Sheila create fabulous colorful sock yarns, she also makes stitch markers! These dangling stitch markers are made with semi-precious stones and crystals.
Sheila is generously donating a skein of her yarn and matching stitch marker for today's contest.
"Do you wanna know the details? Huh? Do ya? Do ya?"
The contest is simple, comment with your best fiber festival story, or if you've never been, share your expectations for this years fiber-frenzy. Contest happens until 5 pm eastern time on Wednesday. Winner announced Thursday.
Don't get caught with your head in a bucket - comment now!
20 comments:
Last year, I had two friends in from out of town for the festival. We got up EARLY on Saturday, because we were determined to hit the Fold. When we got to the booth (at about 8am), there were three people already in line. One of them looked at us and said "Oh my God! You're trillian and turtlegirl!" It turned out that two of the three of them were people we knew from the Knittyboards, and that we were planning to meet up with later.
We had such a blast chatting with everyone in line around us - for as wild and crazy as the Fold was, people were still really friendly.
Plus, this crazy chick came up to me during the Blogger meetup and introduced herself. I've been reading her blog ever since and can't wait to say hi to her at Cloverhill's booth this year. With the FIVE out-of-towners staying at my house this weekend. :D
The best part about the MS&W Festival was my Number Guy stopping at one point and looking at the people around him. To his left was an older Mennonite gentleman and to his right was a 20-something young lady with a plethora of tattooing and piercing.
His comment was, "Wow, can you imagine anywhere else those two folks would have a common interest?"
I've never been to a fiber festival. I am expecting to see lots of sheep and lots of beautiful yarn. I plan on coming with a spending limit because I know I will see so many fabulous products that I will want to buy 2 of everything! And I'm hoping to see some drop spindle demos because I am thinking about giving it a try.
I've never been to a fibre festival, and I'm not able to go to this one either (I'm on the wrong side of the continent), but seeing your preparations for it is making me wish I had one close by. I'll have to look sometime to find the nearest one, because I think it would be fun to go see all the different options available. I'd also hope to learn more about raising the animals and plants that produce fibre.
I ride a scooter and at a crowded festival, people often don't notice me down there. I usually have a flag attached to the back of my seat, but for my first Sheep & Wool I thought I'd put a tassel of a few strands of yarn up there. It was pretty sad looking. My husband is a genius. He went back into the house and came out with a whole skein of obnoxious purple variegated yarn someone had given me and slid it down on my flagpole. Nobody was gonna miss that baby!
While at Sheep and Wool that day I got many comments on my "flag" and several commented I should knit from it. I tried it for a Warm Up America block and got pretty far along during the Sheepdog exhibition but found it difficult to pull the yarn. Maybe we'll rig something better up for this year :-)
I just returned from the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Festival. I went with a friend of mine from college, and while on the ferry over to the island, we couldn't help but notice a good-looking (Brazilian, it turns out) bunch of guys in motorcycle gear having a great time. I passed by on my way to get a coffee, just as one was taking a photo of the others. I offered to take a photo of all of them - as I always do - and did and thought nothing more of it - other than to lament to my friend that 15 or 20 years earlier, all those guys would have been swarming our table, chatting us up. Oh well, we thought, c'est la vie.
We got off the boat and were trying to decide how to get over to the festival: bicycle? moped? hitch? as we walked by the group, now with their motorcycles, waiting for another of their friends to join them. They motioned us over to ask where they should go on the island, and as I gave them advice, somehow it was suggested that we'd get some helmets and show them where to go. If I hadn't been with that particular friend, it probably wouldn't have happened - we tend to encourage one another's goofier sides - but there we were, on a gorgeous day, riding all over the Vineyard hanging onto to a couple of handsome Brazilian guys! Come on - what could we do? It wouldn't have been a good story unless we'd actually done it! We eventually even made it to the Fiber Festival - with our drivers no less! As I told my friends when I got back - BEST FIBER FESTIVAL EVER! See you in Maryland!
Last year was my first MDSW and my mother and I went. We were trying to save money for yarny stuff and stayed in the cheapest motel room we could find. We originally booked the room for 2 nights, but after wrapping towels around the pillows for fear of bed bugs the first night, we opted to spend some of that hard-earned yarn money on a decent bed to sleep in. Funny how it didn't affect our purchases...
I have never had the pleasure of a Fiber Festival and from what I can gather I am missing out on a lot! I live a little far from Maryland and I have never heard of one up here! I imagine all the yarny goodness, new products and let's not forget the sources of all that goodness! One of these days!
My favorite time of day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is when I am sitting with friends eating a lamb burger with hundreds of dollars of yarn related goodness at our feet...all at 9:30 in the morning on Saturday
:-)
wow, there goes my budget!
My favorite MDSW story is when I told a college student I was going to this festival. I'm used to a dumbfounded expression on my students' faces when I share this fiber obsession of mine, but he looked absolutely appalled. Finally, after a few moments of aghast silence he said, "what do you DO at a sheep and wolf festival?!?" I can only imagine what images had been conjured in his mind!
I'd say my favorite S&W festival story is the way I met so many people last year just by wearing my Turkish Stockings. The 'net is amazing!!!! (YAY!!!! only 3 more days!!!)
Three years ago, the Yarn Harlot attended MDSW. My friend Steven was visiting from Texas and he really wanted to meet her and have his picture taken with her. We found her - sitting out on the lawn outside the main exhibit hall - but she had a polite queue of knitters waiting to speak with her. Steven didn't want to make a big deal of it, but I could tell that he really wanted a picture of her. So I handed him my 7-month-old son and said "go stand over there - it will look like I'm taking your picture with the baby, but the Harlot will be in the background!" That's exactly what we did. Now we have a great photo of my friend, my son, and Stephanie at MDSW!
This year, I'm volunteering for Sheep and Wool. I'm helping with the skein and garment competition on Friday, and then selling t-shirts on Saturday, and then I'm coming back on Sunday with my mom to shop (more?) and watch the dogs and look at sheep. I'm expecting all three days to be just extreme fun and full of wool fumes. I can't wait.
Last year was the first time that I had been to Sheep and Wool. I was in awe! I went with my MIL (who was in town to help paint the old house so we could put it up for sale-MDS&W was our only break) and a knitter friend who had also never been. It was great fun and am looking forward to going this weekend! (I've got the Knitting Fund all counted and ready to be spent!)
I've been there in the rain and the hot, hot sun...all before I even knew how to knit! Now that I do knit, the weather has been great every year. Or I'm immune to the weather conditions cuz I'm so focused on all the fiber loveliness!!
I can hardly wait. And the Cloverhill booth is going to rock! I predict long, long lines. Congrats in advance to all the artists and the fiber fairies in the background making this all happen.
I love going to fiber fests!
I love meeting new people or recognizing them from their blogs. I look forward to the people watching just as much as the fiber.
Fiber people can be nice, but they can also be really competitive! A couple of years ago, I headed straight for the fleece sale. Put my hand on a beautiful fleece, turned around to look for the checkout line, and felt it snatched out of my hand! I looked at the snatcher and said, "Hey!" She snarled, "I saw it first!" and stalked away with the bag. She was so nasty (and BIG!) that I didn't dare try to argue.
The first time I went to S&W I was so overwhelmed all I bought was two skeins of COTTON sock yarn!
My first visit to S&W I wanted to buy a wheel, but couldn't really afford to spend the $500 that seemed to be the average cost. I didn't know how to spin, making selecting one that much harder. Then I spotted an elderly gentleman surrounded by PVC spinning wheels and had to stop to check him out. He turned out to be the inimitable Nels Wiberg, inventor of the Babe wheel, and gave me a five minute lesson, the only spinning lesson I've ever had. I bought one of his wheels (only $140 at the time!) and was thrilled with it.
Later that day I met a man in a booth who told me his wife has 12 spinning wheels. Madness! thought I, why would anyone need more than one? Now, a mere four years later, I have 14 spinning wheels and I'm a Babe dealer. That little tug I felt was merely the tiny tip of the giant sucking vortex that is fiber love!
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