It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for me anyway. The ‘bers (September, October, November, December) mean beautiful fall colors, cooler weather, and craft fairs. Next year I’m going back to Rhinebeck, but this year I stayed local and went to Wisconsin Sheep & Wool.

I got the impression that it was larger–or at least more crowded–this year, possibly due to the weather. Last year was very hot which may have deterred some people from attending. This year the weather was sunny and in the 60’s, perfect for outdoor fiber shopping.

I found some new, cool stuff this time and as usual wanted to share that with you as well as my fiber haul.

First of all, this is the first year I’ve been really, really tempted to get a drop spindle. In the end I didn’t, mostly out of fear it’s a hobby my cats will decide is for them to play with. I’ve never used one or spun roving before, so if you have and you have cats, please drop me a comment; I’m curious to see if it works out.

One of my favorite things about fiber festivals (well any craft show in general) is seeing what people are making. There were some GORGEOUS shawls and sweaters displayed this year.

I took pictures of soooo many sweaters that I want to make later in the year.

I also noticed that the new thing this year seems to be 3D printing. I saw a lot of 3D printed yarn bowls, needle keepers and even small sheep figures. I’m curious to see if this trend kind of fizzles out or becomes pretty common as more people get into the hobby.

As in previous years, there was livestock being showed, but we spent so much time in the craft barns that we didn’t get to spend a lot of time saying hi to the sheepsies (per my husband who famously couldn’t tell a sheep from a goat, all fiber bearing animals are “sheepsies.”). It was mostly sheep and goats on Saturday so maybe other fiber bearing animals were being shown the next day. Angora bunnies are my personal favorite.

One of my favorite finds of the festival were these yarn end minders. They are small wooden animal cut outs (either sheep, cats or dogs) that you wind your loose end around to keep it tidy and out of the way.

I have been doing more and more colorwork so I got a set to manage my ends. Of course I picked cats.

My other favorite find was this mug, gifted to me by my best friend. It pretty much sums up how I feel most days.

I love the wooden lid so I can keep my tea hot. Also, I’m pretty sure this is an AI generated image and this vendor had mugs and pins with lots of images of cats knitting that I think were made using AI. That raises the question about that becoming a trend, along with 3D printing.

So what else did I get? Strap in!

First of all, my aunt made me the blanket in the background because she’s a fiber person too.

Both skeins of yarn came from Oink Pigments. The left hand skein is the colorway dyed specially for this event called Kind of a Pig Deal. The one on the right is Totally Tubular and called to me from my 80’s childhood. I felt that the project bag, what with its cats and books, was a moral imperative to buy. It’s called a Sock Box and it’s sold by Star Knits. I have another one of her Sock Boxes and it’s perfect for one skein of yarns, a small project, and the needles. The pin says Bury Me Under Yarn and Books and came from the Hundred Ravens Stand.

This project bag and pin came from Kaleidoscope Fibers.  The pin is a dragon sitting on yarn that says “my hoard.”

I’m obsessed with fall colors so when I saw the two skeins on either end I gasped and made a last minute purchase on my way out the door. The yarn is from Shear Wool Fiber Threads, and the colors are 139-C (orange, brown and green) and 149-C (red, orange and green).

The yarn in the middle came from A Hundred Ravens, which I mentioned above. Last year I found their booth, having never heard of them before and I LOVE her colors. What I love most though is her yarn base  Yaksha which is 70% Merino wool and 20% Yak and 10% Nylon. It is so so so soft. These are for luxury socks I’ll be keeping just for me, thank you. The color above is A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away.

This year I managed to score all of this for about $220 USD, which means at least yarn hasn’t been impacted by inflation yet.

How about you? Have you been to any Fiber Festivals this year? Any plans to go?