08.20.07
2007 Fiber Fest
At the start of 2007 while doing yarn searches on the internet, I came across an advertisement for The Fiber Fest in Santa Monica. For some reason it looks like all the really cool yarn/fiber shows are in other states, or at the closest, up in Northern California (400 miles away, erp). So I was really excited to find that there was a show coming into town. The only catch was that it was scheduled for August, oye. . .
Well amazingly enough, August is now here. The Fiber Fest has come and gone. I was able to get to it yesterday, woo hoo! Although I was glad I went, it wasn’t as grand as I had hoped. It was held at the Santa Monica Civic Center, the same place where the Gem Show is held several times a year, which I think is great, heheheh. But the Gem show had me spoiled because they have loads of vendors there. I was expecting the same for the Fiber Fest, but it was not to be. I was “okay,” tho, and I would like to go again when it comes around again next year. And I also took pictures to share. 
Here’s what the Santa Monica Civic Center looks like:
The vendors were all very friendly and helpful (I just wish there were more vendors!) They even had a few live animals there whose fleece and fur are used for spinning into yarns. Here’s a picture of a guy spinning yarn right off of the rabbit! Ha ha! This is something I had never seen done before. This guy had the live rabbit right on his lap while he gently pulled little bits of fur off and spun it. The rabbit didn’t seem to mind in the least.
Right next to him was that table for alpaca. These animals were also so cute! And they made the funniest sounds, in my opinion. But check them out:
The owners of these alpaca are Lorraine & Mike Smith of Alpaca Knolls. 
I found them to be a very friendly couple and hope to be able to do some business with them some time if I can ever get enough time to do more spinning. Here’s a picture of Lorraine at their table. She was sweet enough to pick up a rabbit to get into the picture. Yes, that’s a “live” rabbit!, heheh. They remind me of little ewoks.
As I’m sure most people know, fibers come from many sources other than furry animals. They also come from plants like flax, cotton, hemp, corn, soy, and silkworms. . . Here’s a pic of the silkworm table.
Those are real live silkworms under those leaves. On the bottom left-hand corner of the tray are several silk cocoons. On top of the can sitting on top of the stack of papers are two cocoons in the process of being made. Unfortunately, it can’t been seen well in this shot, but in person, I was able to see the silkworms working inside their cocoons forming it. On the right-hand side of the silkworm tray are three hanks of silk that were spun from the silkworm cocoons. This table belonged to www.Wormspit.com He has a very nice video of how he processes silk online, but I can’t seem to locate the link right now. I did find his flickr photos which has more pictures of his worms and this year’s Fiber fest. Here’s a little closeup of the silkworms munching away.
The common process of using the cocoons for thread would require that the silkworms be killed so that the strands from the cocoon would be in one continuous strand. If the worms are allowed to live to term, then they would break through the cocoon breaking all the strands. However, since there are concerns about killing the little wormies, there is now what is known as “peace silk.” This is the process by which silkworms are allowed to grow to full term and break through the cocoon. So peace silk is not made from continuous strands of silk, but from lots of broken strands. Personally, I’m not that sensitive to know the difference in the yarn. . .
All in all, I was happy that I went to the show even tho there weren’t as many vendors there as I had hoped. There wasn’t the giant selection of yarns that I had imagined would be there, and what was there was pretty costly. I didn’t end up buying any yarn, sigh. . . but I did buy two small books and a 1 lb bag of roving. I don’t know when I’ll ever get to spinning it, but it was a good price, and I wanted to try spinning some pre-dyed roving. Here’s a picture of it with the two small books I bought on socks.
This roving is made from a blend of mohair and tussah silk top. It’s called Peacock Blue Beast, heheheh, and from Custom Handweaving. Their website is www.nancyscustomhandweaving.com This is the vendor I would come back to the show to see. They also had a large selection of books from where I bought the two sock books shown in the picture. I wanted to learn to knit socks from the toe up and also use circular needles. They had just the books for me.
Another booth that interested me was Bird Brain Designs. Their website is www.birdbraindesigns.net They aren’t a yarn supplier, but I did find their craft interesting and would like to eventually try it. Other resources I found of interest to me were local groups for rug hooking and bobbin lace-making. So many things to try, so little time. . .
Marlakins
