Azalea Festival finds

We don't get alot of big doings in our little rural community, but one fun thing to do during the Memorial day weekend is to attend the Azalea Festival in Brookings, OR. They always have a quilt show with vendors and a couple of years ago I discovered the booths set up by the Webfoot Weavers in the VFW hall. Of course my interest in this group has increased as my interest in fiber and yarn has increased. They had several interesting activities going on in the hall and I'm kicking myself for not taking my camera with me. They had a loom set up that people could use to do a small project on. Several years ago, my youngest wove a bookmark at the festival. The also had several people spinning on their spinning wheels, some with wool from their own flocks of sheep. One lady was making socks with a sock knitting machine. They also had an Angora rabbit thatbelonged to one of the weavers. Those rabbits looked like very big stuffed toys!

At one of the tables I found a small kit with a drop spindle and some roving to practice my hand at spinning. I've been wanting to do this for some time, and thought this was the perfect way to start. On Sat. one of the ladies gave me a little demo on how to use the drop spindle. I went home and tried to do it by myself but the roving kept breaking apart, so I went back again on Sun. and got another lesson. Last night I spun some more.......... It was kind of frutrating, but I'm sure that just like anything else, it will get better with practice. So I bought some more roving to practice with....

















I also found some mohair to try to spin when I get better at it....














The colors in these pictures are pretty true to life. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it is all spun. Now I need to find more info on how to do the 2-ply and set the twist. In case ya'll were wondering, I did find some yarn that I couldn't resist that was all ready to knit!

The colors were just too pretty to resist. I was thinking of using the smaller skeins as an accent - maybe on a felted bag?

I also completed my green scarf. As I believe I've said before, the texture on this yarn is interesting, but I think I'm becoming a yarn snob. I really like the natural fibers, and I think I will probably stick with them for most of my projects. This yarn snagged on every little rough spot on my hands while I was knitting. I do like the striped effect with the textures. This also counts for Project Spectrum. There, I've finished 2 things in the past week and learned one new thing!!