DFW Fiber Arts Fest 2014

My DFW trip was different this year. Michael, at the first of the year, did not know if he would have the vacation time to spare for this. My friend, Cindy, came to the rescue. Since she always goes to this retreat, too, and stays with her sister. I asked her to let me drive up with her on Thursday morning. She and I enjoyed time together and then my Michael came up on Sat afternoon and drove me home on Sunday morning. 

The conference had moved this year to Irving. The convention center was really nice and so was the Marriott that we stayed in. There were nice restaurants close so Cindy and I hoofed it for our dinner. We usually ended up walking a mile total to and from our restaurant choice. The weather was just perfect. It had been forecast as warm and a cold front had come through and given us cooler temps.

Here we all are waiting in line for registration on Thursday morning.

Here is Cindy wearing her lovely "Lyra's Song" Shawl. 

This is Vivian. She took my "Lace Knitting with Beads" Class that I taught a couple of years ago. 

Sadly, the classes at this event fill up super fast. I had a mentalpause moment that afternoon and did not register for classes until 9:00 the day of registration. All the classes that I wanted were gone. I did get in one of my wanted classes a little later though. I took "Spinning a Self-Striping Yarn" and "Knitting with Mawata". I had in my mind how to do spin a self striping yarn, but needed to find out if I was on the right track. I found out that I had it right in my head, but I did learn a lot of helpful things, too.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee taught the class on Knitting with Mawata. 

She soaked the silk cocoons in a crockpot, while she talked of the history of the silk worm and silk industry. It was interesting to hear a lot of the history of silk production. 

Here are the gross, dead silk worms that were in the silk cocoons that we stretched.

Next, we stretched the cocoons over a board to make a silk hankie, which consists of several cocoons that add up to a certain gram weight. 

We were next shown how far a single cocoon could stretch. 

Once it was stretched, she drafted it into roving that you then could knit with. 

Lighter that a feather!

This is a silk hankie that has been dyed. It consists of layers of the stretched silk cocoons. To knit with it, you pull off one layer (a single cocoon) and draft it for knitting into a baby bonnet. I started mine, but have not finished it. My hands are just so dry and the silk catches on them horribly.

Me and Cindy, posing for our 2014 Fiber Fest Photo.

This is my yarn haul for 2014. In my defense, I did real good! I was given the Forrest Hills Lace weight by Cascade Yarns to play with! Have been playing with that and loving it! I got a fresh batch of bamboo as a trade. I did buy the beads, buttons, and orange yarn to the right. My buddy, Cindy, came home on Monday with me the Wool Wash. I, also, got a few ounces of nylon roving to ply with some roving that I am spinning for hiking socks for Ben and Grace. 

This was the night time view from our room on the 4th floor. 

This was sunrise from our room. Lovely way to welcome the morning, with a cup of coffee, of course! 

I took 3 knitting projects and some roving that I needed to get spun on this trip. I did finish spinning  the roving, but the only knitting that I did was this cardigan. It is called Hitofude Cardigan. It is a dream knit! A masterpiece in construction. Go on over to Ravelry and get the pattern. This one is for Grace. I saw the pattern and just knew I had to make it for her. I used Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in Mariner Blue. It is so soft. A perfect pattern and yarn for a spring cardigan.