Y93.D1

I am just back from a long weekend in Black Mountain, NC and Asheville, NC.  A group of us attended SAFF, the big animal fiber fair held on the WNC Agricultural Center grounds.  

The leaves had the generosity to change colors as we watched.

There was little color when we arrived on Thursday, but by Sunday, after a cold front blew through, this is what we saw from the deck of our rented house on Black Mountain.

We were a little disappointed though---in the past, the event took place in the arena where cattle auctions are held, and it was larger than the new building we used this year.  Imagine this area filled with all fiber-related vendors and displays:

This year, the arena held goats and sheep and at the top, above the seating, were the gorgeous angora rabbits.

Really, there IS a rabbit in there!

This is a French Angora Rabbit, cleaning his ears.  

There was a seven-year old girl with us, and boy-howdy, did she want a fluffy rabbit!  But her grandmother held firm, and no one carried a rabbit back to Atlanta.

Partly thanks to the cold, and then the rain, and then this:

we stayed indoors and knit. And knit. And knit. The owners of the house were pretty adamant that yes, there are bears (and snakes) so we lit a fire and enjoyed the company of the ten of us who went up the twisty, turny, hairpin turns on the sometimes paved, sometimes not, roads up the mountain.  

Yarn was bought; needles were bought. Other knitting-related items were bought. (Passive voice to avoid identifying the guilty)

One of the group made these bags to hold our purchases:

What, you might ask, does Y93.D1 mean?

Well, just in case you work with yarn or other fibers, Y93.D1 is the medical billing code for knitting/crocheting injuries. Really!

There is a code for that.

  

  

SAFF

I am so happy to report that I made it to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville, North Carolina! I drove up on last Friday, in horrid rain and fog and the three-hour trip took five hours. But it was worth it. I didn't buy much yarn---the place was beyond full of yarn and it was overwhelming to a knitter of my capabilities. I am not yet an experienced enough knitter to look at something yummy and just buy some number of skeins with plans to knit a *whatever* out of it. But I couldn't resist this: It is from the River's Edge Weaving Studio and it is made of 3 ounces of kid mohair and 1/2 ounce of Bluefaced Leicester Wool. It is much creamier in color than it looks in this photo, and it is very soft. I may just keep it as a pet. One of the friends I was with bought wool from a sheep that she met, but I didn't meet any Bluefaced Leicester sheep.

I was talking with a non-knitting friend when I returned from the fair yesterday, and I apparently went on and on about all the animals we had touched and petted. She stopped me, asking, "Why are you all so thrilled to be touching these animals?" I hadn't thought about it but it's true. We were just so interested to see and feel the animals whose fiber we knit with. It's fun to find out what the fibers feel like before they are washed and treated and spun into yarns.

This is an alpaca, and I have knit many, many things from alpaca. Hello, mr? mrs? alpaca!




This is a lamb. Isn't it cute!?

This is an angora goat. Mohair comes from this animal.

This is an angora rabbit. They are every bit as soft as they look. This is the fuzzy, furry angora you find in sweaters. The angora from these rabbits is harvested, if that's the right term, by hand. The owners just pull it out, and the rabbits don't mind at all.

The fair was held in a huge agricultural structure where rodeos and animal auctions are held. As large as the place is, it was FULL of all sorts of fiber-related things, from drop spindles to felting machines, antique sock-knitting machines, spinning wheels, looms and on and on and on. There were demonstrations of all sorts of activities, and the attendees like my friends and me took along our knitting to do when we stopped for a break. One of our knit-night friends had submitted yarn she had spun herself and a lace shawl she had knit from her own spun yarn. She won three ribbons in all. Congratulations, S!