Fibre East 2014 .....another busy weekend!

The last weekend of July ( crikey where has the year gone too?) saw me motoring down the M1 to attend Fibre East with Helen from My Fine Weaving Yarns. I haven't been to this particular show before but I believe this was the third time for Helen. Friday was set-up day and we managed to do a pretty good display despite the heat and had it all sorted by late afternoon.

 

This weekend was going to be special for me as I wasn't going to be helping on the stall all of the time......I was doing a couple of workshops. I must admit to being rather excited about this as the ladies in question were from America, Sara Lamb and Sarah Anderson, and I have been looking forward to this weekend since Helen booked them at last years show! Also attending Fibre East was Deb Robson and Abby Franquemont! I managed to visit their classrooms before the start on Saturday and get them to sign my copies of their books. I would have loved to take their classes but I couldn't be in four rooms at once! I was particularly excited to meet Deb Robson as her Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook is a constant reference for me when I am deciding what way to spin a given fleece and also what fleeces I would like to try next. I should have got someone to take a photo of me with her but it was a bit of a rush and I didn't want to get in the way.

The first class I did was a full day with Sara Lamb on spinning to weave and she had most of the samples on show that she made for her book of the same name.

 

 

I came away with my head buzzing with all the ideas for projects that I could spin and weave this coming autumn/winter. Needless to say I got Sara to sign my copy of her book and you can probably tell from this photo how chuffed I was!

 

 

On Sunday I did a morning workshop with Sarah Anderson on making a bubble crepe yarn. This is one of the many fancy yarns she has created for her book The Spinner's Book of Yarn Design. I could have spent a lot longer with Sarah as she had been doing other classes over the weekend on yarns such as spirals, coils and slubs, a morning wasn't really long enough but it was really fun!

 

 

 

As you may have guessed I had my picture taken with Sarah too! I really had a great time in both the classes and would love to do more. "What no stash?" I hear you cry........don't be silly of course I bought something! Fortunately I managed to grab a few things before the classes started and I also sent Helen out with a shopping list. So I got a few bundles of dyed woollen blanket for rug hooking (more on this in a future post)......

 

 

 

 A Schacht niddy noddy, another spindle and a vintage rug proddy.

 

 

The spindle is by Turned On The Cut and is made from Sandalwood weighing 30g. Who could resist? All in all it was a brilliant weekend that whizzed by too quickly. At home the hay was cut and it has all been baled and now sits in the hay store ready for the winter, we just need to sell the surplus.