More Sheep and Wool!

First of all, before I forget, for anybody living in the DC area, here's some information about the Maryland Faerie Festival, which is happening this weekend. It's not far from DC, and it looks like it'll have some great vendors for anyone looking for something to do this weekend.

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On to all the fun from two weekends ago at the Sheep and Wool Festival!

These are the photos that Holly took with the little camera that I'm planning to replace soon.

As you can see, there were a lot of people there. One of my friends said that the parking lot was full when he got there, and they had to park on the other side of 441!

Holly saw the dragons and other assorted felted creatures that I missed, and took a picture of them to prove it!

One of the most interesting shops this year (actually, every year) was Susan's Fiber Shop. Susan brought a lamb along with her to the festival this year. She always has the best stuff, but this year, she had the brand new Majacraft Wheel. This wheel was named Serenity while they were developing it, but it appears to be named Aura now. I don't know why they changed the name. This new wheel was developed with the help of Lexi Boeger (Pluckyfluff shown below) and she was there to demonstrate it.

And what a demonstration it was! She did some amazing things on the wheel. The rest of the photos are mine.

Before she arrived, I took this photo, which shows the Aura from a spinners perspective.

Here's a close up of the handle:

The upright is at a slightly different angle than on the other Majacraft wheels when folded. I didn't actually try folding it, but that's what their website says, and that's what the one I saw looked like.

And here's a close up of the "orifice" which is made to handle yarn that has wildly different diameters as well as yarn that has a more even texture.

The "kink" in the part of the wire closest to the rest of the flyer lets you spin finer yarns without the thumping that you get with a big orifice. I think it's quite ingenious, and watching Lexi use it, it seems to work very well. There was no thumping or unevenness when she used it, and it was quick and easy to change to using the more open part so that it could swallow even big slubs!

Lexi put some yarn out that she'd spun to show what kinds of yarn could be spun on this wheel.

There are some pretty chunky/slubby yarns shown here.

One of the major things that is different about this wheel is that it's a double drive, but very different from any double drive you've ever seen. There are two separate drive bands, and two different tensioning systems, one for each drive band. That way, you can choose the different ratios and different drive strengths for the flyer and bobbin. You can easily change the amount of take up on the bobbin without affecting how the flyer is driven!

You can see the green drive band in the photo, which is for the flyer. It's adjusted almost the same way as the Susie or Rose wheels. Lexi used a small wrench for this rather than the knob that lets you adjust it by hand on other wheels. The additional, new drive band is white, and it drives the bobbin. There is a knob on the right of the support for the flyer and bobbin (marked Bobbin Drive Band Adjustment in the photo) that can be used to change the tension of the band that drives the bobbin, and therefore, the take-up on the wheel.

The flyer is excellent for spinning anything you might want to spin, but it hasn't got very many options for flyer speed, which is why I don't want to trade in my Rose wheel for one of these. I'd love to have an Aura in addition to my Rose, but not in place of it. I spin some finer yarns, and don't want to give up that speed.

Lexi is just starting out here, and is spinning a relatively fine, even singles. That's Susan McFarland behind the yarn that's being formed. You'll see her in some of the other photos.

Here's a slub that's just formed and is spinning so fast that you can hardly see it.

In this photo, Lexi is pulling some of the fiber in her hand toward her left to start to form a fuzzy spot in the singles so that she can attach some other fiber and make a slub.

After she did that, she added some yellow fiber and shoved it toward the orifice to form a big slub.

She stopped for a moment, and I was able to show how she's pulling the fiber to the side. You can also see an already formed slub that's about to go through the orifice, and Susan in the background.

It's a little hard to see here, but she's pulling some fairly ordinary fibers to the left here, along with part of one of those little scrubbie pads with all the shiny silver coils that look like tiny curls. She called it a Brillo pad, but it's not that brand, just a generic scrubber. It looks very glamourous and glitzy in the final yarn as you can see below.

There's just a little of it peeking out, just to the left of the yellow section. Although it looks fabulous, I suspect that it wouldn't feel too good to wear.

Here's another photo of some glitzy yarn as it's being formed into a slub and fed into the orifice.

That's an awful lot of photos for today!

I'm giving up on this post for the day, and I'll show you the swag I got from the festival another day.

Have fun!

Maryland Faerie Festival

I'm still here.

I just got distracted by a lot of things yesterday, and then today I went over the new, super-duper JoAnn Fabrics to look at beads. I ordered the wool/silk laceweight yarn from Knit Picks earlier this week, and it shipped on Wednesday, so it will be here soon. I chose the one with some silk so that it would be more likely to have a bit of shine. 

I can't wait.

I did buy some beads while I was at JoAnn. I first decided to get the ones with the silver lining in lavender. Well, kind of a soft, warm lavender.

But then I walked around a bit looking at other things and when I went back to look at the ones I'd chosen, I changed my mind and went with some beads that are overall lavender, but also have a lot of blue, green and even yellow in them. They're called "rainbow" beads, and I think this will work better. 

If I choose the solid lavender ones and they don't match the yarn, it could look bad. But these are guaranteed to not match the yarn, although they'll look very good with it, I think.

I also got some jump rings, a size 12 steel crochet hook (to apply the beads), and a copy of the new Vogue Knitting.

I should mention here, that although it's after midnight, it's still really  Friday for me. So everything I'm going to write will be with the perspective that it's Friday.

Except for one thing. Two weeks from Saturday is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! It's really sneaking up on me. Lynn will be coming down from New Jersey and staying with me, and that'll really be fun. Maybe not as much fun for her as she was hoping , though. Thursday, she has an appointment with the dentist to have a tooth pulled. When that happens to me, I'm not really happy about it even two days later.

Back to Friday. It went up over sixty degrees here, and was the first day it really looked like Spring around here. We've had a string of chilly. wet, rainy, overcast days.

I know, I know. Downtown, in DC, the Cherry Blossom festival is in full swing. But that's downtown. The cherry blossoms are just starting to come out around here, and there are trees smothered in white, pink and deep pink flowers. And the magnolias have started to come out. I saw dozens of magnolia trees from the window of the bus today.

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I found out about a new festival that I didn't even know about. It's the Maryland Faerie Festival, and it was recommended by Dancing Pig Pottery as the best festival ever! It will be happening on the 16th and 17th of May. Should I put it on my calendar? Yes! I should!

Putting it on my calendar doesn't mean that I'll actually get there, but it's possible.

I've got to go. It's after midnight here.

Have a great weekend!

2009 Schedule!

I've been putting this off, but it's time to put up the 2009 schedule so that we can all be on the same page and at the same event, without having to say "Oh, I should have made a request 2 months ago for time off so that I could go to that!"

For those of you who don't know, there are an array of events that I used to go to every year alone. Then Holly moved to this area and went with me, and then she met Everett, and then Lynn found out about it, and it's escalated from there, or possibly got out of control, depending on your viewpoint. The more the merrier, but we'll probably have to take two cars. Maybe we can drag Malaia and John along on at least one event this year. Malaia said she wanted to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival.

So, this is the plan for 2009:

2 & 3 May-- The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. This is the biggest event of it's kind in the United States. It's a once-a-year, not-to-be-missed fiberarts extravaganza! We may only be going on the second, but it'll be open both days. It's free, you just walk in. But save up your money, because there will be a lot that you'll want to buy!

16 & 18 May--Maryland Faerie Festival This was recommended to me by Dancing Pig Pottery, and it sounds like fun.

16 May to 14 June--The Virginia Renaissance Faire. I've never been to this, but I'm putting it up here in hopes that someone else will feel like going and take me along.

13 & 14 June--The Potomac Celtic Festival. For those out there who love bagpipes, and men in kilts, this is the place you want to go! They have cider and ale as well as beer, and I advise that you stick close to Holly, because she always finds the best stuff immediately.

29 August to 25 October--The Maryland Renaissance Festival. One of my favorite things to do. We try to go twice a year. This is a really fabulous Renfair!

3 & 4 October--Fall Fiber Fest. Not anywhere as big as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, but it staves off withdrawal until the next year and lets me get last-minute (so to speak) ingredients for Christmas present construction.

I hope you're all enjoying the Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family! Oh, and don't forget that Castle premiers on Monday!