Fiber-liscious Festival!

We headed off to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival yesterday on a perfect Fall day.  Sunny, fresh warm air, leaves starting to fall as we drove down the Sandy River gorge towards the freeway.  The festival is held at the Canby Fairgrounds south of Portland.  We always enter in the main entrance and head right and this same vendor always has a huge plethora of brightly colored yarn.  

My friend Shirley and her husband John joined us - it was their first time and although she isn't much into the spinning end of yarn, they both enjoyed the animals and all the things you can see and learn here.  These are hanks of ready to spin fibers. 

We headed outside to enjoy the sunshine and see all the spinners and vendor booths. 

Different spinning wheels of all kinds, ladies enjoying the perfect Autumn weather! 

How about some spinning in the sunshine? 

I led us to the animal judging and we got to see which Angora kids won the Blue Ribbon.  These guys are SO adorable and have such a sweet "talk".. maaaa MAAA! 

The Cashmere goats were BEAUTIFUL!  I love their long coats - the soft Cashmere is the undercoat. 

This one's face was simply sweet. 

The Jacob Sheep are a favorite of mine.  I love the spotted fleece and the horns.  They have the cutest little faces, too. 

See the horns?  They have 4 of them!   

Some of them only have 2 and they go backwards.  Weird, huh? 

These are Icelandic Sheep, they were so fluffy! 

Cute face, huh? 

Sheared Alpacas certainly have a comedic appearance, don't they? 

We need to fence our property and populate the farm with these sweethearts. 

Aren't I cute?  Take me home with you! :-) 

Angora rabbits.. so cute and fluffy! 

There were Llamas, too.  Isn't he handsome? 

Look at me! 

One blue eye and one brown.. cuteness. 

Another Angora bun bun. 

Kids and bunnies.. sweet. 

Hanks of silk.. ohhh. 

Tools of the trade.  Drop spindles and more. 

Selling patterns for finely knitted Angora lace shawls.  I saw LOTS of shawls and shawlettes being worn by ladies at this event. 

I was pretty restrained with my purchases.  I got another basket, a skein of grey Alpaca already spun and a pair of carders for the finer fibers such as the 4 huge bags of raw Alpaca that I was given in the Spring.  We then headed off to see the flowers at the Swan Island Dahlia Farm.  How about THIS for flowery goodness? 

We have had virtually no rain for over 2 months.. amazingly rare for Oregon.  They were watering their flowers.

They also had a beautiful Koi pond with several gorgeous fish. 

How about some close ups of the plethora of Dahlia species?   

Hello!  Gorgeous purple! 

I love these unusual ones. 

Spider shaped ones. 

Color me pink!

Rows and rows of them. 

Yellow pompom. 

 Just a hint of purple on the yellow.

"Dinner plate" sized ones. 

Big sunny yellow ones. 

Huge red and yellow one. 

Can you believe the variety of these flowers? 

Then home.  Look what was on the back porch?  Yes, I've been doing some retail therapy on eBay and Etsy.  I will leave you wondering what was in the boxes as this post is long enough already.  :-)   

Here are my carders. 

And my Alpaca. 

And last but not least, our 3rd egg from Buffy!  One more and we can have breakfast.  LOL! 

We are expecting a delivery soon - our 3 year old grandson Caleb is coming for 4 days and 3 nights while our son and DIL head off on a long awaited vacation, sans little boys.  Her mother is taking 4 year old Hayden.  This should be an experience! LOL!!  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)