Allegan Road Trip

Yesterday,  I loaded up the truck and my two knitting pals,  Kat and Jessica, and we hit the highway for the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan.  Jess baked and brought some tasty lemon squares and healthy snacks,  I brought candy and soda to balance things out.  We had a smooth trip with no mishaps,  just a pitstop at a Meijer for a tank top, sunglasses and hair clips -always accessorize.

This rooster marked the entrance to the fairgrounds.  Once I saw the rooster, I knew we were in for something special.  On the marquee we noticed that Kiss and Motley Crew were coming soon,  what a delightful combo.

Once inside the fairgrounds,  we were quickly consumed by the fiber/yarn fumes.  Seriously, check out this yarn.  What an assault of the senses.

Maybe we fell into this merino vortex.  It was a huge barrel of processed merino roving,  and it looked just wonderful.

Some vendor thought it was a good idea to sell a taxidermy coyote.  Just what everyone needs to complete their fiber studio  hallway.  I think I'll pass for now.

Bijoux Basin had some gorgeous bison/yak blended yarns.  Check out these jewel toned colors-  one of the benefits of the tents was being able to see how things looked in natural daylight.

The naturally dyed yarns were subtle, yet beautiful.

One vendor had some bast fibers (not sure what exactly).  They did some demos of how to smack the daylights out of it.  Fun and somewhat primitively scary.

I took a photo of these size 35 knitting needles.  They were HUGE!  I don't know how comfortable they would be for knitting,  I passed on those.

Check out this cutie.

This guy wore his white pants.  I think I got too close because at this point my camera quit working.  Perhaps some hay, or alpaca fiber jammed up the lens mechanism.

I got one sweet photo of Kat (before the camera mishap) holding some muted colored rovings.  I love her  soft muted palette.  I didn't get any Jess photos.  I guess I will just have to do another trip with her.

Here is a photo of my haul. Two pounds of merino for dyeing and spinning.  Four ounces of plummy polworth roving.  And a big book of Haapsalu Shawls.  It has great photos, history, and charts with all of those nupps.

I had a fibery blast.  Now to settle down with that kettle corn....