Color: A Fiber Festival

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About two weeks ago I went to a little fiber festival in Berkeley. The festival is aptly named Color and this was the second one this year. At this point it is a very small festival, about 5 vendors, about 6 small classes and an area for folks to bring their wheels, spindles, knitting, etc. and hangout for a while. But I would say its size is part of what I liked about it, it wasn’t so crowded that you couldn’t get into booths to touch and see all the yarns and fibers, you could sit down, get to know folks and there where not a lot of “tourists.”

The best thing was that all the vendors where local, including two of my favorites, Tactile and A Verb for Keeping Warm. A few yarn stores carry some of their roving but it is so nice to see all of the things they offer and get to fondle it too. Both vendors use natural dyes from Earth Hues to get wonderfuly soft but vibrant colors.

CMV Locks

I got a fun bag of CMV locks from Tactile with a hodgepodge of colors that I am going to blend into a fun heathered/tweedy batt once I can borrow my mom’s drum carder ( I think she has used it twice, maybe). The deep colors are made by overdyeing a darker fleece, which is a niffty way of not haveing to use as concentrated a dye bath as you would with white fleece to get dark colors.

50/50 Yak and Merino

Of course I also had to get something from A Verb for Keeping Warm and there is no other word to describe how wonderful this roving feels but sensuous. It is a blend of 50/50 yak and merino wool, it is like butter and the blend of the natural colors of each fiber will make a wonderful grey heather yarn that will be great as is or to over dye once I decide what to do with the yarn once I spin it up. I just have to finish the last little bit of the roveing from Plumber.

I can’t wait for the next Color festival but in the mean time there will be the Spin-In at Knit-One-One on Nov. 12 and the Meridian Farm Shearing on Nov. 16th so I guess I’ll survive till then.

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Tags: Color, Festival, fiber, roving, spinning, wool, yak