Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Madrona

Last weekend was Madrona Fiberfest in Tacoma. Lynne and I drove down on Thurday night and spent the next four days taking classes, eating (lots of good Thai food and martinis), catching up with friends, making new friends and of course, SHOPPING.
Yup. I bought a little bit of fibre. BFL, merino, silk, cashmere, the usual suspects. Check out those batts! I got them from this lady who was very nice, but kept bringing more stuff that was nearly impossible to resist. By day two, we were openly comparing the vendors to crack dealers. "Here little girl, the first bit is free, tell your friends." Insert evil laugh here.


Purchased a small amount of yarn as well. Blue Moon was the first booth to decimate my cash supply, but others quickly joined the fray. I'm nothing if not consistant.


I only bought the two Spindlewood spindles on the left at Madrona, and yes, one of them is square. I did notice. It spins really well despite it's obvious deformity. The two spindles on the right were waiting for me on Monday night. They're the now infamous Bosworths, a featherweight in really deeply coloured pink ivory and ebony and a moosie. They are exquisite. And they're actually here. Amazing.


The other nifty thing waiting for me on Monday was this package from my SpintoKnit pal. It's a large skein of very soft spindle spun merino/silk and some nice teas. I think the yarn needs to be a scarf. Many thanks to the nice person who sent it!


And if you've stuck with this post to the bitter end, here's a pic of the guy who drove our troop carrier (you read that right) in the Dominican Republic. We stopped in a sugar cane field and he whipped out a rather large knife to cut some for us to try. The Dominican Republic was an interesting place. Sugar is their main product for export followed very far behind by rum. Our tour took us to the back of a cafe where two people were making cigars, through huge cane fields and out to a refinery. Every time we stopped, we had to drink some rum. So basically, they got a bunch of tourists loaded and then put them on a boat that felt like it would sink at any moment. Exciting! I especially liked guessing which drunken tourist would puke first. Fortunately, no one did. Not even me. And we made it back to the cruise ship without having to swim for it. A nice and somewhat surprising bonus.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

*Wipes drool off keyboard*

Oh gosh, the fiber, yarn and spindles all look lovely! Someone brought one of the square Spindlewood spindles to our last spinning group and it looked really cool! Reports are that they spin really nicely, too - hopefully you have the same experience.

I really want to go to Madrona next year!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had fun. Did you think of me while shopping all that great Blue Moon STR stuff? You know I'm jealous, don't you? I badly need some cheering..... just come visit my blog.

Anonymous said...

The spindles showed up? Amazing!

I wish Madrona was real life all the time.

vanessa said...

yum, what is the white yarn at the bottom of the photo?
aren't the moosies gorgeous?

Angela said...

Wow! How did I miss some of that stuff?

Guess I blanked it out, where's the rum?

K. said...

Um...can I come and raid your stash *angellic look* :-D

Denise said...

Okay, my goals for next year are 1)no illness and 2)no banquet tickets so I can hang out with you and Angela on Saturday night.

Nice stash haul! Did I mention that I just show Mr. CPA your stash when I'm trying to look more virtuous? ;-)