DFW Fiberfest Market

Last weekend, I went to the Dallas/Fort Worth Fiberfest Market.  This was the first time I had been to anything along those lines in years, and I had a wonderful time!  


It was especially interesting to see how the demographics of the attendees have changed over time. There were a lot more men and children there than I have seen at other conferences or markets in the past, and these were men and children with tags identifying them as conference attendees. Twenty-five years ago, attending CGOA Chainlink Conferences as a teen, I was consistently the only or one of the only children in attendance, and the male attendees could be counted on one's fingers. I saw similar demographics attending the Stitches West marketplace a decade ago. Seeing such a markedly different balance was fascinating.


Of course, the yarns and accessories were gorgeous.  Most of the vendors seemed to be small, hand-dye companies, and their wares focused on sock yarn.  I love the current trend for mini-skeins, given the cost of 50 or 100 gram hanks of luxury yarn, and I also loved seeing those mini-skeins packaged in color-coordinated bags, perfect for projects using multiple colors. I know this trend has been around for a bit, but this was the first time I had seen it in person, because I live far from any yarn stores that would carry such things.

While I was there, I handed out brochures to advertizing Stitch Whisper's patterns, and I was pleasantly surprised at the enthusiastic reception I met from more than one vendor.  There are things in the works from that little bit of leg work, and I look forward to writing about that here soon! Suffice it to say, there's a fair amount of follow-up I need to do in the coming weeks from dipping my toes into the pond of professional networking.

Here, you can see my haul of new fluffies :) I went with a shopping list for yarns I need for upcoming projects, but I also bought two additional skeins just because I liked them.  From top to bottom, I bought:

  • The very top, blue, purple, and white is a Yummy 2-Ply Toes mini-skein from Miss Babs.  It's 100% merino superwash, and the colorway is Across the Universe. This was one of my unplanned purchases.  I don't know what I'll do with it yet, but it has 133 yards, so I might make some Monster Socks with it or something else along those lines.
  • The grey yarn right below the Yummy 2-Ply Toes is a skein of Mimi DK from Haute Boheme Fibers (They've paused online sales until they get back from Fiberfest, but it's still fun to window shop!). It is also 100% superwash merino.  It has 231 yards, and the colorway is 90's Grunge.
  • The blue yarn next to the Mimi DK is Mohair Silk Lace from Wander Luck Fibers.  It is 69% silk, 22% kid mohair, and 9% nylon, with 459 yards in 50 grams.  I have always been and will always be a sucker for mohair, so buying this skein was a necessity.  I'll be using it for a crochet pattern that I hope to publish before the end of the year.
  • The green skein is Luminosity from Lazy Cat Yarn.  I spent quite a while at the Lazy Cat booth chatting with Rebecca about The Original Lazy Cat, among other things.  She was a lot of fun to meet, and if you go to her website, you will see that she has a couple Monty Python-themed colorways, which is a huge plus in my book. You can't see it in the picture, but Luminosity is a sock yarn that has little, sparkly threads sticking out of it.  I saw that kind of yarn at several booths, but I wanted to buy something from the Lazy Cat Yarn booth.  Luminosity is 75% merino, 20% nylon, and 5% stellina, which I'm guessing is the sparkly part.  The colorway I bought is called Ocean Depths, and it has 438 yards per 100 grams.
  • The dark pink skein on the bottom of the picture is Makimo from Fiber Lady.  It's 100% bamboo, with 335 yards per 4 ounces, and is a DK weight yarn. This was my other impulse buy. While I'm not always sure what to do with bamboo, I love woring with it, and Fiber Lady's colors are amazing.
  • Last but not least is the lighter pink yarn on top of the skein of Makimo.  This one is 3-Ply Sport from Rancho Inca Alpacas.  Alpaca is probably my all-time favorite fiber to work with. Rancho Inca Alpacas is an alpaca breeding ranch in southern Texas, and judging from their website, selling yarn from their animals is a relatively new part of their business.  Their yarns don't come in bright, exciting colorways, but they do show off the natural look of alpaca.  I love that their skeins are each made from the wool of a single alpaca, although they are blended with other fibers, which means that the yarn tags each have a photo of the alpaca in question on the front and a little information about that animal on the back.  The skein I bought is 80/20 alpaca/merino and contains 330 yards per 3.5 ounces. I spent a lot of time at the Rancho Inca Alpaca booth, and it was a pleasure chatting with Bill and Mario, who are clearly passionate about their alpacas.
This post has been linked to Busy Monday, Inspire Me Monday, Your Moment, Heartsie Girl, Wonderful Wednesday, Stitchin' Mommy, Thursday Favorite Things, Friendship Friday, and Happiness Is Homemade.

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