Sunday, October 2, 2016

Manitoba Fibre Festival - Handspinning

After much planning and a gorgeous weekend, the Manitoba Fibre Festival has wrapped up its fourth year.  There is much I could write about, but I will focus on the Handspun Skeins competition because I was the co-organizer of this event.  Last year was the first competition on a smaller scale.  As a lace-spinner, I wasn't satisfied by the requirement last year that yarns be of a medium weight, so I mentioned to the fabulous Festival organizers that I would love to see more categories and - as one has to expect when one asks for a volunteer-run event to develop an area - I found myself co-organizing this larger competition. Joanne Seiff was my fellow co-organizer.

All of our organization would have been for naught without a judge.  We were fortunate enough to have local Master Spinner Jo-Anne Tabachek as our judge. She carefully assessed each skein backstage at the Festival before they went on display.



We were impressed by the many beautiful entries and all the wonderful prize donations.  I have linked to the websites that exist for the donations, but a few of them do not have websites. However, they are all local (to the Winnipeg area) and can likely be found again this January at the Norwood Naughty Knitters fibre event. Stay tuned for that announcement and if you want a direct update you should join the NNK on Facebook. NNK will also cross-post in the Yarn Over Manitoba group if you are there.

Back to our competition update.
In the Singles category, this bright green skein of squishiness
 won this fluffy delight of a batt from Wild Wind Naturals.
Note that we did not have many singles submitted, so if you are a singles-spinner, send in a skein for next year's competition!

In the 2-ply category, this jewel-toned yarn
 won a delightful braid of wool top from The Wacky Windmill.

Also from the 2-ply category, this soft brown yarn
 won some squishy roving from Spin It.

In the multi-ply (3 or more) category, this much-admired skein of local shetland
 won this soft roving from Turtle Mountain Alpacas.

In the heavier weight of multi-ply yarns, this chunky 3-ply spun from local Shetland
full disclosure - this one is mine
won a gorgeous batt of Shetland and other goodies from Tog & Thel
Also mine now; I'm a wee bit excited. Prizes were assigned to categories in advance of judging.
For novelty yarns, much to our surprise there were only two entries and both were gorgeous. The winner was this corespun yarn.
 The spinner received this fantastic blend of top from Manjusha Fibres

Our final category was yarn spun from a raw, animal source. The spinner had to start with the raw material. There were three categories - wool, camelid, and "other" (for angora, silk, chiengora, etc.) We had 5 submissions of wool, but quite surprisingly only one of alpaca. We were not surprised by the lack of submissions outside of the wool or camelid category, but perhaps that will be an incentive to spinners - you could win in this category by default. Heads up you bunny-keepers.

Back to the winners.  For the wool category,  this gorgeous orange yarn was not only cleaned, prepared, and spun by the contestant, but she also dyed it. I love orange.
 She won a wonderful selection of Shetland and Mohair from Prairie's Edge Wool Farm

Our lone alpaca yarn (come on alpaca-spinners, regale us next year!), was this soft beauty
that won some very soft alpaca roving from Penny Lee Alpacas.


All the submissions were lovely and received much admiration from the public.  Here they are.

My singles submission using merino dyed by Cloud 9 Fibreworks


merino-silk. gorgeous.




I managed to take a terrible photo of my own yarn. It is much prettier in person.






My cable-plied yarn. Now I can finally knit it!


My submission spun from "All the Wool Fleeces", the brown fleece. 


I look forward to next year's competition and all the beautiful submissions!