FINALLY an in-person fiber festival!

It's been a while since I've been to an in-person fiber festival. I think the last one was MDSW in 2019. Regular readers will remember the temper tantrum I had about missing 2020. I was more resigned in May 2021 (though that didn't stop me from taking online classes). But friends, the dry spell is over - the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival was live this month and WE WENT!

Masks were expected indoors, regardless of vaccination status, and we were happy to comply. This is Alison, Kris, and me just after entering the first building. You can tell the yarn fumes are already making us a little giddy. 

I'd almost forgotten how to work a fiber festival. I feel that I didn't take the right pictures and I was kind of bleary-eyed from over-stimulation the entire day. But oh, what fun it was to be back in our natural habitat!

At least two vendors had a special show colorway, and I fell hard for the one at Dancing Leaf. It's called "Shenandoah River," and I think you can see that the other color name they were probably considering was "Janelle." I get why they went with "Shenandoah River," though (and I snagged a skein on their sock yarn base).

None of us went into this festival with a shopping list. We were open to whatever moved us, which is normally a pretty dangerous state when entering a fiber festival. I'll admit that I bought a bit more yarn than expected... but in my defense, there were some good sales! 

There was also some inspiration. I visited the Sweet Tree Hill Farm booth twice because I was so taken by this Butterflies and Bees hat. The yarn is milled from their Shetland sheep, and it's worked in stranded colorwork which is an iconic Shetland style. I texted a photo to S1, who also quite liked it, so I got the kit. There should be enough yarn in these mini-skeins to make TWO hats. As much as I love my Shetland yarn from Shetland, it's nice to have some grown a lot closer to home.

Lately I seem to be into a minty aqua color, so naturally I gravitated toward these bundles of roving from Two Roots Fiber Mill. The blend is 52% Huacaya Alpaca, 17% Suri Alpaca, 25% Merino, and 6% Silk Noils. They had some bulky yarn spun up from it, too, but I bought the roving so I can spin it myself (those bumps are 4 oz each). I took a picture of their yarn for inspiration:

I hope mine comes out as well.

I also got some needle tips and cables to supplement what came in my ChiaoGoo set... and a skein or two of random sock yarn... and some sale yarn for hats... and a new project bag made from Harris tweed. And I finally got to see everything adKnits makes in person. I just love her stickers! She has a series of knitting/national park designs, and I bought one for every national park I've actually been to. Starting from the top left, these are for Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Shenandoah, Acadia, and Great Smoky Mountains. I think they're so cool.

This is the third time I've been to this festival. It's a lot smaller (and hence, more manageable) than Maryland, and we typically have gorgeous fall weather. It's great. The first time I came, I was happy to enjoy my first slice of pumpkin pie for the season (I love pumpkin pie). They had it this year, too, so I just had to have a piece:

You can see that a little wasp is happy about it, too. I didn't even mind sharing a bit because the day was so perfect. Friends, fiber, and fellowship = my happy place.