a weekend full of fiber

This past weekend, Mary, Kate and I hung out in Turkeyville, MI with our art quilts and sheep, goats and angora bunnies. Running with Scissors was invited to exhibit our work in the barn during the Fiber Arts & Animals Festival and it was a most awesome experience.

I took tons of pictures so here goes:

Cornwell is alllllllll about the turkey. Turkey chili, turkey dinners, turkey sandwiches, turkey salads, turkeys in the barn out back (which is how I suspect they furnish the previously mentioned items):

I did get an education about the temperament of turkeys. Turns out they don't like the color red. Which would explain why, after taking this picture, the lovely gentleman in the foreground of the shot turned to face me fully and glare at me. My purse has a large red fabric panel on it. I took his look as a very clear bugger off and left them alone. Nice turkeys, nice.

The fiber festival was across the street from the restaurant. This place was the definition of charm:


Need a pumpkin?



Wander across the street and you see the barn where our display was:


Its a lovely restored barn that was a great exhibit space:


We had many visitors and lots of questions about art quilts. Rick invited us back for next year and we are very much looking forward to it!

The barn used to house hay. They have ladders that go pretty much all the way up to the top of the roof. They made me dizzy to look at, let me show you:


The weather was rainy off and on and we had cool temps but it didn't keep us from wandering around outside amongst all the fibery goodness. Here was the view behind where all the vendors were set up:


I had a good time making friends with all the four legged creatures:


The angora bunnies were fantastic. They were like clouds with legs and didn't mind being petted obsessively by a city girl that doesn't get to see them very often. I particularly liked this handsome guy.

And the goats. Oh my the goats! I soooooo wanted to bring a couple of these babies home! (I think Dooley would not share my enthusiasm.)

This little girl was only three months old and it was the first time away from her mama. She voiced her displeasure loudly if she was left alone, which wasn't often at all. Very sweet, loved to be petted. She comes from One Heart Farm (their website is coming soon), an organic fiber farm. She made me want to load a dozen just like her into the back of the car and become a goat lady.

I pretty much felt the same about the sheep, especially after seeing this sign:


Really want to go green? Loose the lawnmower, buy some sheep. The three lovely ladies in this pen were for sale and were getting used to quirky nature of humans, I visited them several times and made friends with this one:

Pretty girl, huh?

Most of the sheep were getting naked:

It was a sight to behold. The lady doing the shearing was super quick. Covered in wool one minute, looking like they lost fifty pounds the next:

I bought some brown roving to spin that suspiciously matches this lovely lady. Not sure if it came from her but the color is spot on.

Meet Matillda, she likes humans:


There were raw fleeces for sale, straight off the sheeps:

I'm not quite there yet. I'm still attempting to master (or at least not suck at) the spinning. The day I decide I want to buy a raw fleece to process is the day I might as well just move out to Marshall and buy some sheep.

But lest you think that the only thing to do was admire the four legged friends that make our fibery adventures possible, you'd be mistaken. There were many vendors there with the most fantastic things to pet and buy. I didn't take any shots of the booths (which I regret) but did bring home some things to remember them all by:

One the left is hand spun yarn from Pumpkinhaus. I admired it greatly and Mary gave it to me as a birthday gift (thanks Mary). Pumpkinhaus has it labeled as "Flight of the Bumblebee" but I think it looks like a taxi cab.

The yarn in the middle and the right came from Jehovah Jireh Farm. I plan to make a cowl out of this one. The one in the middle is 50% wool/alpaca and begs to be worn.

I also found some goodies in the booth from Bricolage Studios:

That's a little bag made from her handspun to hang on your spinning wheel (I've made the commitment to myself to spin more, I really want to make it more of a regular exercise) and a necklace with one of her most awesome fiber beads hanging from it. (You can see more of them in her store here.)

To say that we had a really good time is an understatement. We are already looking forward to next year and I'm looking forward to using all the goodies I picked up!