Great Lakes Fiber Fair

Every Memorial Day weekend, the Great Lakes Fiber Fair is held in Wooster, Ohio.  Several years ago I went for the first time.  I met up a friend who lives in Canada.  She and I hadn't seen each other in over 15 years.  I really enjoyed the show, but since I wasn't into spinning I didn't find much among the vendors to purchase.

Yesterday I went back and took a friend with me.  Since I am now spinning, I came home with bags of goodies.  The show seemed larger than it had been last time.  There were more vendors and a lot more people attending.  The only part that didn't seem to grow was with respect to lunch.  There were only three food vendors and only a handful of picnic tables.  Parking was also interesting because there seemed to be another event at the fairgrounds also.  But the weather was perfect and we enjoyed our adventure.

Here is what I came home with.

Fiber Optic was at the show.  I got a skein of lace weight in Milkweed.  Very pretty green color!

This is a skein of unknown fiber from an unknown vendor.  It seems to have a little silk in it.  The colors caught my eye and I bought on impulse.  My friend is an enabler! 

On our first pass through through the market, I noticed this blue roving.  Since it was the last of its kind on the rack, I bought it because it probably wouldn't be there when we came back through.  While waiting to pay, I noticed the green.  It had to come along also.  I can't decide if I want to spin these together or separately.  I'll have to think it over.

This roving didn't photograph as beautifully as it is in person.  The vendor had a sample of it spun up.  It was very lovely.

Just as we were ending our journey through the market, the lady at the last vendor booth told us that she was selling her entire inventory because she was getting out of the fiber business for family reasons.  She mostly had raw fiber, but there were a few bags of roving.  I took two.  The first was 20 ounces of Rambouillet.  There are 5 balls in the bag.  That was the price for the entire bag, not just one ball.

The second bag I purchased was 40 ounces of Mohair.  The price was unbelievable. The lady said that it has been sitting for a while and it a bit smashed.  I'll have to carefully tease it apart when I spin it.

I also rooted through a grab bag of roving odds and ends.  The blue-green roving below came home with me along with 10 of his twin brothers.  It feels very much like colonial alpaca that I spun a few months ago.  The white on the right is a bit of the Mohair. 

I decided to try spinning them together.  Since I don't have a carder to blend them, it is a bit fussy, but I am liking the results.  The Mohair is giving it a nice halo.

This should keep me busy for a while.  Now I have to figure out where to store all of these goodies.  Time to head out to Target for a few more plastic bins.