Conversations at Houston Fiber Fest

Oh my goodness where do I start? The best thing about the Houston Fiber Fest for me personally were the face-to-face conversations I had with so many folk who are just as passionate about fiber as I am. I could fill several posts with all the wonderful people I met up with and what we spoke about. I will have to limit myself!!

First up was Beth Bower from Inner Loop Dyeworks who had provided me with yarn support for my sock design. How kind! I left samples of my leftover crochet sock at her booth. And yes I am seeing pattern sales on Ravelry appear in my in-box since I released it last week!

Then I visited Karen at Round Table Yarns. She provides yarn support to Karen Whooley who as you may know is one of my favorite crochet designers. I wore one of her shawls Violaceous both days from her latest book "Garden of Shawls".

I had a fascinating conversation with Stacey and Penny at the Brazen Stitchery booth about sock blanks. I'd just found out about these from my friend Claudia in the latest episode of her Crochet Luna Podcast Sock it to me! and I had to buy one to see how it worked up in crochet.

My friend Diane had saved me a seat at the Crochet Meet up Table and there I met my two fellow crochet teachers at the event: Kristi Millsap who was teaching an Introduction to Tunisian Crochet and Carole Fitzgerald who was teaching Crochet Fingerless Gloves. They were both great and we compared notes on what we were teaching.

Jessica from Houston Fiber Friends had arranged a meetup for us too. We sat at a table inside the foyer and shortly afterwards starting shopping together. Yes I did shop as well!! Listening to one of our group, Mel, talk about the joys of spinning led me to purchase a drop spindle!

At the Foggy Hollow Ranch booth, farmer Lynda sold me fiber for my new spindle from Demetri the highland sheep who is not only sweet natured but has fleece that is easy to spin, so I've been told. Fun times ahead!

And finally I just loved my twelve fantastic students at my Crochet Sock Techniques class - they were all sooo lovely, had great crochet skills and worked extremely hard. 

Anyway I hope you enjoyed my brief round up. I am now off to the UK this week to visit my family so I'll be taking a little blog holiday for a few weeks. I will return at the end of July. Have a wonderful summer everyone!!

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Hoston Fiber Fest is THIS Week!

Houston Fiber Fest starts THIS Friday June 23rd. I am SO excited!! I am going to be there on Saturday primarily visiting vendors and squishing their yarn but also hanging out with people and obviously I'll be there Sunday afternoon for the class I'm teaching.

Lester The Fiber Fest Mascot

Last year I attended just one day but I stayed for seven hours. I felt I had to get around as many vendors as possible so that I could record a really comprehensive audio review for Fay at the Crochet Circle Podcast. It was an amazingly fun day and I just can't wait to do it all over again!

This year I'll be spending some time at Inner Loop Dyeworks Booth #17 with Beth Bower. Beth is a fabulous indie dyer and she very kindly provided me with yarn support for the small crochet sock pattern I designed for my class. She even let me choose my colors and custom dyed them for me! Amazing! Thank you Beth - I'll see you on Saturday with my sock samples!! I'll be launching my sock pattern from her booth. It's called #theleftovercrochetsock because it's baby/toddler size and you can make it with leftover sock yarn once you've made an adult pair.

The meet up tables are back again this year so I will be at the crochet meet up table on Saturday at 12 midday.  It's a really fun way to meet new people who are into the same thing as you. Well obviously we're all massively into yarn but there are meet ups for spinners, weavers, stitch marker swaps and so on. Here is the meet up table schedule. And I'll also be meeting up with a group that I've joined very recently the really fun Houston Fiber Friends. It's going to be the best weekend ever!

Anyway have a wonderful week y'all and let me know if you're attending any fiber events over the summer. And do tell me if you're going to be at the Houston Fiber Fest so I can look out for you!!!

Listen to the Audio Podcast