Fiber Festival Loot

And the after-bath:Yesterday I soaked the knitted doily until the water remained clear and blocked it on the same 8-sectioned board I used for Christel. This is how it looks now. The board was a bit too small, so I will probably reblock it on the foam mats I bought earlier and stretch out the points.

This photo is of a doily called "Königin" from Kunststricken: Große und kleine Decken. I think I have a match!

And here is the rest of my fiber festival loot:
Three skeins of Domy Heather from Davidson Mills in green, purple and white, a skein of electric green sock yarn from Poppy Yarn Designs, a skein of grape-colored laceweight from Maple Creek Farm, Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis,

and three little fingerpuppets from Peru.The ghostly-eyed cat is my son's pick. The cute llama, complete with ear tassels, and the swan are mine mine mine. After reading the article in Piecework with the Peruvian figure purses, when I saw these guys I had to have 'em!

You might notice the lack of tatting or netmaking stuff - our (the West Michigan Lace Group's) favorite booth, Mielke's Farm, was not there this year. They were on the vendor list earlier, but the Calendar of Events on their website says "2009 Michigan Fiber Festival - Sorry, we won't be able to attend this year. Andrea will be six months along at that time."

We missed her! Maybe we will see her next year with a 9-month-old.

The weather this year was hot and humid. If you've been suffering through triple-digit temperatures, the 90-something degrees we had (32+ C) might not sound that hot, but combine it with the sweltering humidity we often get in August and it felt plenty hot. It was like walking around in a hot, wet bath towel that you can't take off.

Nothing like looking at wool, spun and unspun, and paging through patterns for sweaters and shawls in a Michigan August! You really have to have a good imagination to remember winter at that point.