This weekend we went out to the Berkeley Kite Festival, it was quite a site! I took lots of photos that you can check out on my flickr.

I don’t know if I have ever been in a place with so many talented, crafty, DIYers in one place before in my life. There was even more stuff that we just didn’t manage to see and we can’t wait to go back next year.  I think the botton above by Sean says it all. For more pictures click the mosaic.

Some color for a Monday, these are the other tie-dyed shirts that we wore to the Whole Earth Festival.

My tank top. Raspberry, turquoise, golden yellow and avocado green.

Libby’s T-shirt. Golden yellow, avacado green and azure blue.

We started with the first cherries of the season at the farmer’s market.  We bought a big bag and munched on them all day in the warm sun.

There was music and dancing on the quad, we crashed on a blanket and ate more cherries and shared Carrie’s garlic fries.

There were booths with clothes of all kinds of patterns and fabrics and colors.

Patches of color and bikes (of course it IS Davis!)

We wore our Tie-Dye of course. There are more pictures of the low impact fun at my flickr.

1. One Love A Day: Day #40 – Fluids, 2. Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn, 3. dye run – spring 2006, 4. hey psst!, 5. Hand Dyed Fiber Buns, 6. Dyeing Success – Macro, 7. Selling colours, Pashupatinath, 8. Dye-ing leather, 9. Yellow Dye, 10. The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts., 11. Attack, 12. Tie Dye T-Shirts, 13. Untitled, 14. Dye studio shot , 15. Blue & Yellow Dye, 16. bundles of joy

1. Between The Shadows… Your Singing Light…!!! )), 2. Feliz Natal! *, 3. pomander, 4. Snowcouple cupcakes, 5. latkes, 6. Santa And Rudolph’s Midnight Snack, 7. Christmas ornaments, 8. Deer Maria Christmas Magnet, 9. USB-Powered LEGO Christmas Tree and Festivus Pole, 10. A dedication to a lost bird friend, 11. xmaspuds1, 12. HBW – Holiday Edition, 13. candy cane feet, 14. Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, 15. “The Gingerbread House”, 16. felt ornament dove

It is out! The new issue of Artful Blogging, one of several magazine addictions that I have and am hoping to spread. This mag is page after page of eye candy and the fun doesn’t stop there because if you are like me you have to go look at (and end up subscribing to) all of the blogs. The Google Reader list is getting rather long, but that is the way I like it. So check out your local bookstore or magazine stand, this one is not to be missed!

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.

In honor of the trip to Lambtown this weeks mosaic is about wool things, enjoy:

1. Spring Lamb – 2007 BBC Countryfile competition winner., 2. Spinning wool, 3. Lambtown Wood Carving, 4. Wool, 5. Spindlewood Co drop spindle, 6. Sheep Shearing, 7. Alpaca (Vicugna pacos), 8. Hand Dyed Roving, 9. And then she pricked her finger, 10. 300507 newborn, 11. wool mummy, 12. Color Blend Skeins

So yesterday was the Lambtown, the Dixon Sheep and Wool Festival. The BF was very sweet and drove myself and my friend Libby from high school through all the gross traffic on I-80 while we just gabbed the whole way (he is definitely a keeper).

Unfortunately thanks to rising costs and Carrie Underwood (gag) , the fair was not at the Dixon fairgrounds this year and had to be serious downsized. This meant that very few non-fiber vendors got to come which is a mixed blessing because a lot of other great craft vendors didn’t get to come; but then all the vendors that sell cheap plastic crap didn’t get to come either. Instead the fair was at Hall Park which was actually rather nice because there is a winding little path that vendors were stationed along so you had a nice path to fallow through everything and anyone that had wheels of any sort (strollers, chairs, etc) had great easy going.

There was a great shearing demo several times that day, the sheep we saw getting sheared was actually really complacent and put up with being rolled over and pulled around really well. Although once she was all clipped and up on she legs he wanted to bolt, but she was quickly herded into the little pen that she and several other sheep where being keep just for the shearing demos.

Carolina Homespun had their both as usual, they always have wonderful stuff that makes you want to empty out all your savings and take out a second mortgage (even when you don’t have a first one). Since I am not adding to my stashes of yarn OR fiber this year out of my pocketbook at least it was rather torturous; in a rather pleasant sort of way of course. They had some delectable silk pencil rovings from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks by Nancy Finn, I almost broke down and got one but I managed not to. I did take a picture though!

We poked around all the boths, sat on a grassy little hill in the shade and drank lemonade while we watched everyone go by. There was a fleece competition as well as several other spinning events such as the skein competition, spinners lead etc that we didn’t really stick around for because the heat started to get to us and we went in search of lunch in Davis.

I did get one thing at the fair and it is not for me but my car, a bumper sticker with a great message. I have to agree with Brenda Dayne and her idea that perhaps all world leaders should knit. That is all for now.