I Wish I Had a Thousand Words

The two barns given over to the sale of all things woolly at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival remind me a lot of the Dealer's Room at a Science Fiction Convention.  You have to walk very slowly to avoid missing anything and breath very shallowly to avoid hyperventilating and refuse to spend a dime the first and second time you walk that path of fiscal destruction.  This mohair was beautiful hanging and swaying in the warm September breeze that blew through the wide barn doors.

You have to remember, it's not just one barn that is half a city block long with two aisles all jam packed with dealers of spinning wheels, fiber, knitting and felting needles, books, fiber, hand dyed felt, silk, hand-spun yarn, roving and fiber, looms, spindles, and patterns for knitting, crochet, tatting, spinning, dyeing, weaving and felting.  It's that there are two barns full.  They should just supply brown paper hyperventilation bags and drool cups at the door.

Demonstration pieces like this lace cape and gorgeous cardigan that show precisely what kinds of exquisite clothing you could make if you had the time AND the patience using this purveyor's hand spun and that dealer's dye -- these examples hang everywhere. 


 
I never thought seriously about learning how to double knit until I saw this scarf.  Like some of Barbara Walker's knit stitches it appears that double knitting like summer-and-winter weaving does spectacular things with hand dyed variegated yarn.  That scarf on the left is a single piece, flipped so you can see both sides.  The crocheted shawl to the right displays yet another way to use variegated yarn (on sale at that booth) to best effect.  FYI, I couldn't dye a yarn like this.  It would require a dyeing table about half as long as the barn, meticulous attention to detail and impeccable skill in applying just the right amount of dye in just the right amount of wool. 

And there are inventors there too.  Here is Nels Wiberg, inventor of my favorite spinning wheel the PVC Babe. On the table before him from left to right are: teaching drop-spindles, his Little Spider Charkha Wheel which sits behind 1, 1.5 and 2 yard niddy-noddys lying next to plying bobbins which are in front of the Pinkie spinning wheel which stands behind a box of odd bobbins.

Then there's Nels writing up my receipt for a single 1 yard niddy-noddy.


Behind him there are the fliers and bobbins and maidens he has built from Patio Furniture Pipe so that I can afford to spin.  And behind that, more dealers.


And that is it for pictures from the 2011 Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.  There are more, of course, but I won't be taunting you with them.  You'll just have to go and see for yourself next year.


Next week.  Halloween is coming ... oooOOOOoeeeeeEEEEeeoooooOOOOoo.