Michigan Fiber Fest

I had such a wonderful time at the fiber festival. I got to meet an online knitting freind in person. Vicki of Fibertraditions and her friend Roberta was a great knitter and person(not in that order).
We took two classes with Galina Khmeleva. We learned(ahem0 to spin and ply with handcarved Russian spindles in the Orenburg tradtion. it was chalenging but very fun. I definitely need to practice. We were given to try cormo, cashgora, pygora ,casmere,camel and silk,and yak and silk. I tried the cashmere and the cashgora. I have yet to try the others. We also plyed the Orenburg way, using a handspun single and a silk thread. I love this idea because a)I only have to spin half the yardage I would if I did a two ply
b)the silk adds sheen and stregnth
c) 4 oz of casmere is a lot less expensive than 8 oz
The use of these promted me to buy 8 oz of grey cormo and 4 oz of cream cashmere which are in the picture and a cone of silk thread. I also bought my russian spindles and bowl in birch for practicing. I didn't want to wait until I get good at it so I also bought two spindles for spinning lace, very light weight. One is a Bosworth featherweight in canarywood and the other a Meilke in lacewood(how appropriate:-)
The second class was a two day class on actually making an orenburg shawl. We made a mini shawl and went over blocking.
Galina is a great teacher I would HIGHLY recommend if you love lace knitting to take a class from her. She is witty, a great explainer and gives great visuals. She must have brought more than twenty examples of Orenburgs good and poor quality and showed us the differences.
I could go on and on. The festival itself is a trove of treasure for those of us out in the wasteland. I could get nothing like this where I live. It was great to be around others who share my passions.