Glorious Saturday

Today was one of my favorite events of the year -- the Spinner's Flock Winter Fleece Fair.  Every February for the last several years I've been attending this sale of everything fiber-y.  I headed out this morning with 5 friends to Chelsea, near Ann Arbor, to get my annual fiber infusion.

We arrived early and made our way into the middle school's cafeteria ahead of the masses.  The roving, dyed and natural, was carefully stacked on the cafeteria tables.  More fiber than you could ever possibly need but you sure do enjoy the fiber fumes ~~

Sue found plenty of fiber for her to spin up and yes, that is her signature turquoise-y blue and green in the bottom ball of roving ~~

There were racks and racks of hand dyed and spun yarn available too, although I avoided temptation today.

Linda, however, could not ~~

Some of the spinners in the Spinner's Flock spin up samples of their roving and a few even provide knitted swatches so you can see how the yarn will look when it is used.

I noticed one member of the group used natural dyes.  Here's her result using Osage Orange ~~

It was a yummy caramel-y yellow.  But again I resisted.  That wasn't always the case.  I managed to score some fabulous roving from Liz Cowdery, including a bright lime green ball that kept calling to me as I scoped out my options.

All six of us left the school with bags full of treasures.  This show is a win-win for everyone involved:  we all get the opportunity to see, touch, smell the fibers up close before purchasing and the money we spend stays in our local economy.  For many of these spinners this is their biggest show of the year.

We loaded up the back of the T&C with our goodies ~~

Don't Harriet and Linda look like they had fun?

All that shopping made us very hungry so we headed to a vegetarian restaurant in Ann Arbor where I spotted this fabulous stained glass window ~~

I think it would make an excellent quilt design.  It's beautiful!!

After lunch we headed for home, or at least toward home.  I asked if anyone was interested in stopping at a new yarn shop in Northville.  I knew the answer before I asked the question so of course we stopped at Center Street Knits.  More about that tomorrow.........