TORRANCE FIBER FEST 

Yesterday -- Margie and I had a fabulous day at the Torrance Fiber Fest.  This is an annual fiber frolic sponsored by the Southern California Handweaver's Guild.  We had many, many fiber fanatics in our booth and so many of our friends stopped by to say hi.  Here are some pictures of our booth.  My tower of handpainted sock yarn.

Handpainted merino/bombyx silk rovings.

Baby camel and silk rovings and silk and alpaca yarns -- all hand-dyed by moi.

Here is my rack of handpainted Blueface Leicester rovings which was very bare at the end of the day.  

More handpainted Blueface Leicester rovings.

Close up.

We also had loads of handspun yarn, spun from fibers we dyed first.  These first two pictures are spun by me.

Very special yarns.

Here are some of Margie's handspun yarns.

And what a pleasant surprise --one of our past customers stopped by to show off a handspun/handknit sweater made from some Cormo wool fiber that she had purchased from Margie at the Torrance fest last year.  She carded and spun the wool and knit this beautiful little sweater.  How cool!

And here are some of my favorite hand-dyed fibers.  I had to go raid the Redfish Dyeworks booth before the show opened to get some of their gorgeous fibers beautifully dyed by Elf. These are merino/bombyx silk (50-50).  (http://www.redfishdyeworks.com)

Are you drooling yet???

This is baby camel and silk (50-50), a most delicious blend and so easy to spin.

For anyone who missed the Torrance Fiber Fest this year -- don't despair.  The Association of Southern California Handweavers will host a weaving and spinning conference this coming March, 2009.  Margie and I will have a booth and Redfish Dyeworks is sure to be there, too, along with many other great vendors.  For information:  www.aschsite.org   There will also be classes available so check the roster of teachers and classes on the ASCH website.

And finally, if you haven't heard about Golden Gate Fiber Institute, you must go to their website:   www.goldengatefiberinstitute.org   GGFI is putting on their Winter Intensive Workshops from January 5th through 11th at Camp Bonita, just north of San Francisco.  I attended the Summer Intensives and had the best time so I'm going back again.  This time, I am taking knitting with Kathryn Alexander (http://www.kathrynalexander.net) and garment design with Jeane De Coster (http://www. elementalaffects.com).