Handcrafted in the Hills 2013!

We had such a great time at the Hancrafted in the Hills fiber festival! We left Minnesota early Friday morning with a car full of wool and yarn (and a 2 year old!), and set up our booth that evening. It was fantastic to finally meet some familiar faces from Ravelry, as well as the other vendors. My booth was small but we had a great turnout! Thanks to everyone who came by.

I had the best booth space in the house, right between the coffee station and the gals who were giving massages! ;) I was right next to the Spindler's Cottage booth, Michael had some amazing handcrafted spinning tools. I purchased this lovely cherry wood spindle from him.

The spinning here is one of my gradiant colorways which progresses through yellow, lime green, turquoise, blue, and purple. I split the braid in half lengthwise and am spinning two singles to ply together to keep the color progression. I think this will become a pretty shawl for a booth sample.






I also snagged a few other items from the other vendors. A very cool purple 'kitchen sink' batt from Kim of Yarnsanity, which quickly became this two ply yarn on my new spindle. I spun and plied this 2 ounce skein during the second day of the festival. I love it, so funky! Kim also had some
undyed sock blanks, which I've been wanting
to try to dye so I grabbed one of those as well.

The organizers, Rita and Sue of C R Yarn in downtown Rapid, also had a booth with items from their shop set up. Rita took home a pretty burgandry skein of my BFL Silk Lace, and I got this pretty braid of her Merino/Silk top. Since we got home I've been spinning this braid into a thin single. I intend to ply it with something else to do some sort of novelty or art yarn. Not sure what yet!





It felt great to use my spindle so much again, but of course I needed a break from spinning too. The Saint Cloud Knitters started a KAL right before we left, so I hopped on the wagon! A few days before we left I quickly purchased the Color Affection pattern and dyed up a few colors of sport weight wool.



And I knit away! 10 hour drive to and from South Dakota, as well as plenty of knitting time sitting in my booth. I'm several repeats into the short row section and loving this knit! There's just something about the garter stitch, frequent color changes, and short rows. So easy, yet just enough interest to keep my sanity.

We're buying a house! Inspections finished and waiting on appraisal. We're closing the first week of June. We're so excited and just anxious to get moved! Luckily we will have about a month of overlap between closing and having to be out of our apartment, so we can take a little more time to move and get settled.