BLACK SHEEP GATHERING CONTINUED

As I always do each year at Black Sheep, I entered some of my handknit and handspun creations into the fiber arts show. These are my entries and I was so tickled to have gotten three blue ribbons and one red ribbon. The first entry was a pair of socks I knit using the Waving Lace pattern from the Interweave Knits 25 Favorite Socks. I spun my colorway Sargasso Sea which was handpainted on Blueface Leicester Wool/Silk.

I received a red ribbon on a capelet I knit with 100% pygora handspun yarn. This was my original design. I bought the fiber from a small flock in Oregon owned by Wendy Hallman.

A blue ribbon was awarded to my wet felted scarf. This again was one of my originaldesigns.

I entered one handspun skein. This is 100% pygora and I received a blue ribbon.

And, of course, no Black Sheep Gathering is complete without the purchase of beautiful fibers and such from the many small farms and vendors who attend the show. One of my favorite booths is Rainbow Yarns Northwest from Kelso, WA. Susan Prechtl and Terry Mattison have beautiful batts and their specialty is pygora fiber. Terry can be found on Ravelry as "Spinpygora". http://www.rainbowyarnsnw.com

I bought two lovely batts in a deep rust color called "Adobe", of 50% pygora, 40% merino, and 10% silk. I can hardly wait to spin these. I will probably ply this blend with one of my handpainted baby camel/silk rovings.

One of my objectives in shopping at BSG this year was to find some hand-dyed mohair locks. These kid mohair curls were purchased from The Pines Farm of Maple Valley, WA. http://www.thepinesfarm.com

Next was a beautiful batt of jacob wool from Kenleigh's Fiber Studio, www.kenleigh-acres.com. This batt is actually quite dark charcoal, even though my camera shows it dark gray.

A continued search for mohair locks turned up Cloudspun of Monroe, OR.

Here are a couple of Blueface Leicester wool rovings from Kelly Ward of Ward Farm from Schoolcraft, MI. Lovely fiber from a small farm.

Mini batts of alpaca and silk from Beacon Bend Alpacas from Eugene, OR. www.beaconbendalpacas.com

A bigger batt from Beacon Bend -- alpaca and silk.

Much to keep me busy for a while. And looking forward to the 2011 BSG show.