2016 Fiber Fest

2015 was the first time I attended Fiber Fest at the Irving Convention Center. With the closing of one of my favorite local yarn stores, Madtosh Crafts, I was hankering to browse some beautiful yarns.

Before I went on Saturday, I took some time to look through my Evernote crochet folder, Ravelry, my own notes, and Etsy, for some ideas of what to work on next.

After the success of my Granite Cape sweater, I've gained some confidence and am still wanting to work on a more fitted sweater. I shortlisted two that I've had in my notes for a while now:

• The Araucaria Cardigan needs about 2500 yards of dk 8 ply yarn
• The Aruna Cardigan needs about 2000 yards of worsted 10 ply yarn

The only trick here is finding that much yarn in the same dye lot at once. Usually most stores recommend ordering it directly from the maker. So really I needed to browse to see what I liked for these. As I would want to modify the Aruna quite a bit (to make it longer), I was leaning towards working on the Araucaria one first.

All kind of yarn and people at the show. If I had a dollar for every not standard hair color...

As I figured, I didn't actually get any yarn for a sweater...most of the yarn there is hand dyed and I did not feel like spending close to $400 in yarn for a sweater I may or may not like. Got some really good advice on perhaps using just say three skeins of some hand made yarn for the detail edging and doing the main body in a commercial yarn though.

It was good to get to talk to professionals who also understand my limitations and budget. And I really loved her yarns and colors. Next year perhaps I'll be a bit more bold.

Wandering the vendor hall, it was so hard not to just buy all the Madtosh yarn in my favorite colorway, Mandala, but as I had no project in mind, I moved on...

large area to just sit and knit in the middle of the hall

I've also really wanted to make something gigantic...like a huge plushie of some kind. Again, that would require quite a bit of yarn. Not sure why, but I keep coming back to this giant sleepy cat thing by Nekoyama named Amari-san. Apparently he's a large version of a smaller cat toy named Amineko by the same designer. Based on the finished projects (I was especially looking at MrsDanvers' as it was so nicely photographed) it looked like I would need about 900 yards if I wanted to use a worsted of some kind. Unfortunately, Miss Babs Yarn wasn't there this year, from which I had planned to get a few of her giant skeins for this cat.

In the end I did get some yarn, but for another project altogether. I've been wanting to make this Juliette Shawl for a while, and so kept my eye out for a set of ombre yarns in a color I liked. I found it in this set of yarn called Teal Deer by Vice Yarns. I also went out on a limb and got a small bag of clear silver beads. I am going to try to add a few beads to the last couple of rows just to give it a little shine! Keep an eye out for a post on this shawl in the future.

Last but not least, you might have noticed a little silver item in that picture as well. It is a shawl pin made of white bronze and cast from a piece of grape vine from a brand called Jül Designs. I love how organic the shape was and I had to have it. Figure it will look lovely on my pineapple shawl and anything else I use it with.

Till next year!