caracolina

Friday night John and I drove to Tucson because I was going to attend a spinning class and spend some time (and money, ha!) at the Southwest Fiber Festival in Amado. Like last year I was going to stay over the weekend with Elaine (former president of the AZ Federation of Weavers and Spinners Guilds) who also taught my class. John had originally considered going to the festival but  didn’t feel like it and pushed on towards Willcox. He spent Saturday at Brown’s Orchard picking apples and making cider while Elaine and I got up early and drove down to Amado. In the class (which was about spinning mohair goat fiber) I spun some mohair roving, then tried a plying technique involving sliding locks of mohair into the plied twist as you go along. Kinda cool when it is done right – of course it will takes some practice. Afterwards Elaine and a couple of other women did the skein contest judging and another gal and I did the fleece contest judging. At first I was really nervous about it but I learned quite a bit and had a good time to boot. And… I also submitted a skein of handspun and walked away with a red ribbon! I might have gotten a blue ribbon if I had used proper ties to fix up the skein but I’m still very pleased since I didn’t expect to win anything.

Totally forgetting about lunch (I think there was some food but all the vendor booths and critter pens had me completely distracted), I managed to spend a little bit over my allowance, but not too much. Elaine and I left around 4.30 PM. She snagged the first shearing of the cutest little mohair doe, only 5 months old and so soft! We picked up dinner on the way home and spent another fun evening chatting (and spinning). Although I was so tired I went to sleep pretty early. These festival weekends are like sleepovers! John picked me up on Sunday around 11 AM, carrying over 9 gallons of delicious cider he had made from apples he picked all by himself, yum!