GGAF

Have no idea how I totally forgot to post about GGAF last year!  For those who don't know, GGAF is the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival and it is absolutely AWESOMENESS!  2012 was no exception!  Met new fiber/yarn people, sold some yarns I miss, and managed to pack and load before the rain hit.  That in itself is a great hit in my book.

Have I every told you....  I love my yarns.  Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that my yarns are better than everyone else's yarn.  What I am saying is that a little bit of me goes into every yarn/fiber dyed and spun, so it is like saying goodbye to a little piece of myself every time I sell one.  That definitely is not a bad thing, especially when my fabulous customers show off the lovelies they made.  It makes my heart warm inside.

This is the long stretch on Johnson Beach and is also where we were married.

My booth behind the rainbow adorned 'Wool Girl'.

Finally had a chance to finish spinning some very lovely hand dyed teeswater locks!

Don't you just love this knit hat!  Traded with a friend, yarn for knitting me this lovely hat using my Glammy yarn.  I seriously think I got the better end of the deal.

Very appropriate colors set up in the booth as the festival was in Florida!

Loved the Teeswater spun locks so much that they had to be shown again:)

Met a few Floridian friend for Pho (pronounced foe).  LOVED the fish sauce too!!!

Another Florida friend gifted me eggs, delicious, home-raised EGGS!  The little yolks come from eggs called and I kid you not.... 'Farters', a very technical term for the very first egg a chicken ever lays...hehehe

Had to show off some spindle spun yarn at the Barnes & Noble Knit Night...  PS, it is every Monday night at the Barnes and Noble by the airport in Pensacola.  Fabulous group of knitters and I LOVE THEM DEARLY!!!

A sand dune shot, just because I could.

Did anyone ever tell you they grow cotton in Florida!?! Well they do and in Alabama too!  This field of cotton was near Floamaton.

And why is there a picture of a room here?  Well, as chance would have it, these were my lodgings for the return trip through Georgia.  It was a darling room and I was a terrible guest... I broke part of the coffee table... Sigh, when will I ever learn!

Taught classes in Georgia on Carding and Core Spinning underneath this gorgeous chandelier.  This is one of those lovely places that one wishes they never had to leave.  Oh, I was so depressed leaving Georgia to go home!

Wonder if this sweet little guy missed me.  Probably not for long...lol

Luckily the fall foliage in it's gloriously colorful autumn splendor will cheer even the glummest of outlooks.

Seriously, I drove through this on the interstate.  Gorgeous no?

SAFF

SAFF was awesome!  Made a ton of new fiber friends, hugs'n'kisses with old friends and sold a little fluff.  What more can a gal ask for?  The threat of Sandy scared a few folks off, but all in all, it was fabulous week end.

Shot out the window along i-75

Another pretty view along 

I always knot SAFF is just a wee bit further down the road when I see this view.

My LunabudKnits booth

My booth neighbors Renee & Esther lugging loot in my new sheep bags:)

My little friend spun some yarn with me most of the week end.

Linda got to hold the giant angora bun-bun.

Some of my hand dyed wool on the 'Wool Girl'.

What kept me busy during SAFF... Dizing roving like a mad woman!

Renee tail spinning.

The sweet and lovely Tunis sheep.

Carved pumpkins at Grove Park overlooking Asheville.  We dined on the patio and had a delicious meal with great friends:)

Georgia Alpaca & Fiber Festival

Yes!  Those are cupcakes with adorable little knit cupcake decorations made of icing adorning their sweet pink tops!  When you see these in the entry way of a Festival you know for sure you have arrived at the place to be for a fun filled fiber weekend!

The Georgia Alpaca and Fiber Festival was a great first year festival.  They had contacted me several months prior about teaching a few classes over the course of the week end.  I am so glad I went  And as always, as things often go with me, I do have a little story to go along with!!

The day before leaving my throat was a wee bit sore and scratchy.  Needless to say, upon waking, I had a full fledged head cold.  You know, the snotty nosed, sniffly, watery eye, throat so scratchy it hurt to swallow.  Yep, one of those.  

A trip to the pharmacy later, I was stocked up on cough drops, pain killers & cold meds.  Honestly, it really was not as bad as it sounds.  The congestion was the worst and being completely wiped at the end of the day was no fun, but as far as sickness goes it was fairly smooth going:)  Unfortunately, it did not let up until after the very last workshop I gave!

And that brings us to the classes.  Had an absolute blast being the instructor for 3 classes:  Coming Unspun about knitting with fibers; the Science of Carding which is about carding smooth batts, art batts and making roving; the Fundamentals of Dyeing where we tackle not one, but 3 different methods of dying! 

Have to admit, I hated for the Festival to end.  The committee members were absolutely awesome and just so very wonderful.  Attendees were so very kind and a really joy to share knowledge with.  And there was a great selection of lovely fibers to choose from!  How could anyone want the week end to be over, even if they had a nasty little head cold!?!

Welcome meeting with some fabulous door prizes!

This batt was carded completely with teeswater locks!  Is that not cool or what?

Carding alpaca

Some merino about to head through the carder after the alpaca.

Look who made the most beautiful ball of roving ever! And I'm not kidding, her roving was the most perfectly made rope I have ever seen in one of my classes!

Wish I had remembered to take pics of my other classes, but I was a bit more concerned with keeping my germs to myself:)  Oh well, next time!

Location:Georgia Alpaca & Fiber Fest

Four busy weeks

Indeed it was! 4 fiber festivals, 4 weeks, and 3 states. Think it might be a more interesting thing if I could have said 4 weeks...hahaha
Let's work our way backward.

Yes, technically not a booth or festival shot, but it is a fine pic taken of the surviving members of the great wall collapse of 2012 at Hoosier Hills. Left to right, Johanna of the beautiful pink hair and myself. Taking the picture is Ms Carrie who helped immensely with the clean up of our wall disaster. As luck would have it this happened during breakdown after the festival. The wall was bumped a bit from behind which cased it to tumble and dump all the pretties in the middle of the booth;). It made for a funny kind of packing well deserving of milkshakes at Steak and Shake afterward...lol

The Middle Tennessee Fiber Festival was a pure delight! From the awesome vendors to meeting some spectacular customers like the Knit Girllz. Wish there had been more time to hang out a little in Nashville and check in on old friends around the area, but that can definitely be planned on for next year;)

And before I forget to mention it, We picked up the sweetest little hitch-hiker at a truck stop along I-65. Nick-named, Little Dog, it was apparent she did not belong there with ticks the size of thumb nails hanging from her ears and a panicky look in her sad little eyes that pleaded with every person who walked by her to take her home. With a bath, vet check and spay, she quickly found her forever home with one of the customers from A Tangled Yarn and loves her new name, Knitty Purl!

It wouldn't be a proper spring festival tour without a full weekend at the Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival. This year was a bit of a rocky start when my wallet was stollen during set up, but as things started to get under way and the flood of folks thronged to the show, I found that such a little thing really did not matter when it came right down to it. Had an absolute blast teaching my classes, talking with my customers and hanging with my fiber friends who really understand my obsession a bit more than most!

Last but definitely not least, especially since it was the first Festival of the season, Indiana Fiber & Music. I have to say, they put on a lovely little festival full of not just awesome fiber folk but spectacular musicians to boot!
All in all the spring festival circuit was a smashing success! I love all the new friends I made such as Johanna of the lovely pink hair, Carrie who never once complained about picking stuff up from the concrete due to a fallen wall, and

GGAF & Pensacola - 2011

 

Now, why don't we back track a little bit to a time before the world changed.....

November 4th-6th was our second showing at the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival.  I love this festival.  Not just because it is in Florida or even my top selling event, but because it is my very last Festival of the year!  And what a better way to end the festival season in Florida with your Floridian knitter friends, the Pensacola Purls who meet on Mondays at the airport Barnes & Noble! Gosh, how I love those gals!  Don't worry, I am definitely planning a return visit if the festival folks let me in again:)

I couldn't keep the art batt bins stocked well enough!

Yarn, yarns and more yarns!

Sock yarns

Bfl Sock

Glammy-licious!

I love when customers bring in finished projects from my fibers.  These are from last years batts and were spun on  a 'Trindle' and then hand knit.  Kudos to Miss Jennifer and awesome fiberista!

Say hello to the needlefelted dolls of Darlene Samuel of Pace Florida.  Is this not the cutest little needle felted guy on the planet or what?  PS..His mane was made from one of my batts!!

Also by Darlene, the cutest little finger puppets ever!  This little guy was done with  my fibers too:)

My little splurge each evening was eating at the 'Fisherman's Corner' which is under the Theodore Baar Bridge in Perdido Key.  It is not a super fancy place, but the fresh caught specials are out of this world!!!  As you can see, after finishing each night, I was lucky to get a little table  where I could knit a little while enjoying one of America's oldest brewed beers, Yuengling. Fabulous combination!!  Wish we had Yuengling in Kentucky!!