Totally OFFF!

G'day all!

I must say I did go totally OFFF, thank heavens not like a raw prawn in the sun.

And can someone remind me that next time I go to a fiber festival that taking my spinning wheel would be a good idea?  At least if I drive my car there.  My wheel does fit into a suitcase very easily but lugging it around for a weekend is not so much fun.

The drive took a lot less time than I thought.  Portland is only 3.5 hours south of here and when I5 is running smoothly, it is a trouble free trip.  Portland itself is quite small - it does spread out sideways a bit but compared to what I'm used to (cities of 3-4 million people) it seems quite compact and the 4pm on a Friday traffic was laughable.  Maybe two miles of stop start traffic in two bursts and that was it.  It looked interesting and I want to go visit Portland itself properly.  We could catch the train there - it costs more than driving but it only takes 3.5 hours (same as driving!!!) and then we could just wander around on the MAX (light rail) and on foot.

I found my accommodation easily enough and would've found it quicker if I had not missed the sign on the turnoff (not helped by the enormous SUV in the way).  The accommodation was adequate to my needs.

I am not sure there were enough pillows or that five could fit in that bed easily.

 I had planned to go back into Portland and look around but it turned out that the train was only a commuter rail thing, not a normal line, and so only runs during peak hour (which they kindly refused to define).

OFFF was easy enough to find.  I followed the sign posts to Canby and then followed the Washingtonian and Californian plates to the festival grounds.

Hooray!

I may have bought a bit of fiber. And a bit of fabric, but I've not taken pictures of that.  The fiber festival did not have fabric, but the local quilt shop did, and so did an enormous warehouse of a shop called Fabric Depot, which is about 5 minutes off the 205 in Gresham/Portland.  OMG, I have never seen such a huge place pretty much entirely devoted to fabric.  Even then they did not have some of my favourite lines but I did just so happen to go in on the last day of their 30% off everything sale.  Oops!  Between 30% off and the lack of sales tax in Oregon (it's 9.25% in Seattle, not that I mind paying sales tax, it is just annoying that it isn't built into the price, mostly because sales tax varies from county to county....), well what was I meant to do?  Come home with nothing?  At least none of the yarn tempted me - even at 30% off, it was still about 20% more than I'd expect to pay for it.

Plus there was a Fred Meyer near my accommodation, a good one with lots of me-friendly food.  And some good specials on new pants (not undies, trousery things), very timely indeed as I went through my favourite pair last week.  After four years they called it quits on me.  I now have two new pairs of a very similar cut.

OK, I'll stop holding out on you.  In the interests of keeping me honest and not hoarding all of it, I've taken pics of all the fibre that is not at the processors.  Pics taken on the phone, though the good camera has come back and is supposedly fine.  Sigh.

BFL X CVM fleece, "Blue"

Corriedale fleece 1

Corriedale fleece 2, yearling.  Oops, there's a third corrie fleece too.

Rambouillet X Cheviot fleece, already washed!  4lb

New flicker and carders to play with fleece.  Old ones are in Oz.  sigh.

Already washed CVM fleece, Benny.

A wodge of undyed targhee blend roving

Wodges of undyed and dyed cormo top

Yummy merino/cashmere/silk top

Probably polwarth/silk blend.  I didn't buy much of this stuff.  Ahem.

Pretty colours!  Polwarth silk plus some merino.

I saw this stuff online last week and oh dear.  It followed me home!

Upside down but still pretty.  Mermaid colours.  mmmm.....

A local dyer's work.  There's yak in the one on the left.

Some of these were cheap cheap cheap!  And some polwarth may be involved, again.

Unusual choice for me but smooshy and bouncy :-)

cashmere and silk?  And optim?  mmm-mmm!

Bright, chirpy Targhee and friends.

Crispy, crunchy blended rambo.

Whatever it is, it is pretty.

It doesn't look so big when you don't get half of it in the picture....

Note that this is not all the fiber I bought - I got a few lovely fleeces at the carpark sale that went straight off to the processors.  I can't process much fiber here - I kept a bit but not a lot - so I am getting it washed and picked and turned into roving.  As the vendors liked to remind me, winter is long and wool is warm.  Winter is going to have to for blasted ever for me to spin all of this lot up 8-)  As for the knitting of it... sometimes the spun yarn is my goal.  Once I've got that, I don't know what do to with it!  I've been known to sell it through the local guild at home but when the top/roving costs $20, you don't get much return on the handspun yarn.

Where's the yarn?  Why buy yarn when I so enjoy spinning my own?  And I may have a fair stash already.  I was starting to run out of fiber - only about another ten lots to spin - the horror!

Best mystery bag evah!

OK, I did buy this much yarn.  $26 for two skeins of Blue Moon?

Pricey.  $1175.

The wood, padauk, in that e-spinner was very very very pretty but umm not that pretty.  However, buying it in Oregon probably would've been a good idea if I were to buy one as it would save over a hundred bucks of sales tax....

I have a love/hate relationship with sales tax.  I'm not seeing it paying for much in the way of roads in Washington and I dunno if it is helping much with the fire brigade or the cops or the schools.  Oregon doesn't have it and I'm wondering what they use to pay for the roads with cos the roads in Oregon were a thousand times better than the rough, potholed, lifting concrete monstrosities here (it reminded me of driving in New South Wales and Victoria at home.  You knew when you had left Victoria because you started wondering if you had four flat tyres the roads were so crap).  I know they have income tax on wages in Oregon (but not here in Washington state) and Oregonians complain about how much property taxes are but they do that all through the States as far as I can tell.

Anyway, it was a good, if expensive trip :-)  I have lots of pretties to play with and turn into even more lovely stuff (I hope!).  For once I didn't just buy 100g/4oz of each, some I bought two of!  Hooray!  That means I can knit more than a pair of mittens and a hat or a small shawl.

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed something in the background.  It is for a later post - I haven't talked about the fiber animals or the duck herding yet.  Plus I have a whine about some very sulky thread.  And my biggest ever quilt is back from the quilter and awaiting binding...

anon!