One of the first items that caught my eye was the handpainted combed top ("American and Scandinavian fine wools" is what the label says) from Butternut Woolens. The owner was lovely and friendly. She had fiber but most of her booth was handpainted yarns. I came by about three times before I dug these two out of her basket. This is 8 oz.I was very happy to find a bumper sticker like Susan's.
I circled this llama for about an hour before I finally succumbed to it. It is so fine and soft. I felt up a lot of fiber and this was the most delicate llama I can into contact with. This is almost 11 oz.
And it came with a picture of the llama! Meet Dazzle.
I think the owner said she was just a year old which is why her fiber is so fine.
A fiber that I was unfamiliar with before the festival is pygora. It's a cross of pygmy and angora goats. The breed originated in Oregon. There were several breeders at the festival. I got to touch a lot of fiber and see many cute little goaty faces. The fiber is extremely fine and soft like cashmere. I found these two boxes (4 ounces total) at a bargain basement price. It's a blend of 75% pygora and 25% Gotland wool. The dark guard hairs make it "less desirable." I did see lots of perfectly snow white fiber but this one felt really good to me. I kept coming back to it and it was a quarter the price of most of the other pygora. All the pygora fleece in competition was not for sale. But I got to stick my hands in all the boxes and read all the judges comments. You can find far more lustrous pygora than what I got but I'm afraid I'll ruin it when I spin it anyway so why splurge just yet.
I peeked at the Bellwether booth several times before going in. They had a large display of Cormo yarn. Oh dear. So soft. So springy. It was love. But I hated all the colors they had in the Cormo fiber. Then I looked way up on top of the display and saw these three bundles of Cormo and silk. At first I was only going to take two but the very fun and friendly ladies at the booth suggested I would be better off taking all three and that I could return any unused roving! I think I ended up with 28 oz.My final stop of the day was at Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I spent a long time talking with Kaci and Tina. They're such fun women and their yarn, well, it's really nice. I picked up two new skeins of Socks that Rock. The blue/green is a new colorway called Ms. LaRock.
