A New Name, Same Fabulous Fiber Fest

The Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival is now the Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival!  Always the third weekend in September, this fine festival outside of Saratoga Springs, New York, is a delight.  The weather is usually perfect, and the leaves are just starting to change, making for a great weekend out in the open air.

​Adults $5, Kids 13 and under free.

Saturday, September 23rd
10 am to 5 pm.

Sunday, September 24th,
10 am to 4 pm.

Barb and I will be heading up on Friday to set up our booth.  We are, once again, in Building 12, Booth 7 -- the building you go through right at the entrance!  We have some beautiful hand-dyed  and mill-dyed wool fabric for rug hookers and quilters, and I have some new pattern designs for you as well as old favorites.  Please come see us!

Here is the website: Adirondack Wool & Arts Festival   There's a $1 off coupon on their home page!  Hope to see you there.

Scenes from the Long Island Fleece and Fiber Fair

I tried posting from my smart phone on Saturday, but apparently it isn't smart enough!  Of course, it could have been me who wasn't so smart . . .  but we won't go there!  Here are some photographs of the weekend, which was beautiful and breezy and full of fiber.

Our Booth in the Naugles Barn

Our Wall of Wool

One of Barb's Bunnies

Barb's Hen on an Egg Pincushion

Sweet Sheep Pin by Barb/thimblefolk

Setting Up Saturday Morning

Taj Mahal Farm Fleece

Long Island Livestock Booth

Baskets by Barbara Blossey-Chuvalas

After Shearing

Angora Goat

Peconic Ruggers Setting Up

Mama and Baby Piggies

Wow! What a Weekend!

 

My guild, The Peconic Ruggers, hosted their biennial rug show this weekend, in the beautiful Naugles barn at Hallockville Museum Farm.  I have been a member of the Ruggers since its inception almost a decade and a half ago, and I believe this was our most successful show ever.  Guild members, led by the young and innovative Jennifer Faulkner, worked magic Thursday and Friday to turn the barn into a hooker's dream.  The weather was wonderful, the guests were great, and the rugs were spectacular!

 

We had lots of vendors, including the delightful and very funny ladies of The Wool Street Journal and G. Woolikers -- all the way from Colorado and Georgia!  Our potluck on Friday night helped us get to know each other, and what a lot of laughs we had, as well as good food.   Saturday morning brought a full house, drawing people from as far away as Queens.  My daughter, Clara Jauquet, kindly brought her fancy camera along and photographed the barn from top to bottom before we opened.  (All the photographs seen here were taken by Clara.)

Jennifer issued a challenge to the guild a few months ago to hook a gravestone for our cemetery, an appropriate addition to any Halloween weekend. 

On a sad note, I send my condolences to our co-president Judy, whose husband passed away unexpectedly last Wednesday.  It was good to see so many Peconic Ruggers at his wake on Monday night.  We were all there, as we will always be,  to support Judy and her children, who face many difficult days ahead. 

Sweet New Critters from My Sister Barb

Barb (aka Thimblefolk) has a quartet of sweet valentines available for sale on our PictureTrail site. Go take a gander at them -- you'll fall in love. Click here: Hallowed Hill Primitives on PictureTrail

While you're there, click on her etsy shop and our ebay shop -- she's got lots of beautiful hand-dyed wool for sale, and I have some new rug hooking patterns listed.

Road Trip to Dorr Mill

Barb and I hit the road yesterday for a supply buying trip to Dorr Mill Store, the Holy Grail of rug hooking. Dorr is nestled in the little town of Guild (pronounced guy-uld), New Hampshire. It was about a 500 mile round-trip drive for me, covering no less than five states, but it was worth it to be able to touch and see all the woolly stuff Dorr has to offer.



We had a snow storm earlier this week here on Long Island, but it warmed up and rained and the snow melted. New England, however, was a wintry wonderland. The farther north we went, the snowier it got. Vermont was coated in sugary frosting. It was really lovely.



As always, we enjoyed our visit with Terry Dorr, who showed us some really great new wools -- including his Primitive Natural, a buttery-colored, textured wool that Barb is anxious to get into the dye pot. I found just the right poison for my mermaid rug, which I designed several years ago in a dye-and-design class with Dick LaBarge and George Kahnle. And we got our regular requisition of primitive linen and natural wool. (I'll post some pics of the wool tomorrow -- some of it is already in the washing machine. . . )

If you can't spare the time to visit Dorr in person (or the money for the gas -- what was I thinking?), you can visit them online at their newly updated website here. You can order through their website now -- an improvement Terry pointed out to us yesterday. (I always enjoy talking to Terry. He takes time to chat, and is full of good ideas for small rug hooking businesses.)

So now I have to knuckle down and get some new patterns onto linen for the 48th Annual Fairfield-Grace Rug Show in Fairfield, CT, on March 29. I have a lot of work to do . . .