There is a crazy heat wave coming through town but luckily my husband and I had planned a quick road trip to Flagstaff for the Flag Wool and Fiber Festival. I’ve been waiting for this festival for about two months and have been talking everyone’s ear off at work about it. Even coworkers who had never heard about yarn, knew there was a festival. I found out about it from a newsletter sent by one of the local yarn stores in Prescott. It seems like most LYS offer newsletters so I always make a habit to get my name on their list. I would recommend asking the next time you are shopping at one. Being on these newsletters has helped open doors to events and products I would have never known about otherwise.

The festival was from 9am – 4pm both Saturday and Sunday at the Pioneer Museum, which was an awesome back drop to walk through. We got there about 2pm on Saturday and arrived to a packed parking lot. There were a lot of people walking through the festival, more than I expected! I was really excited to be around so many other spinners and those interested in fiber arts. The festival had a good mix of vendors everything from completed knitting projects to prepared roving to straight off the animal fiber! The wool and alpaca locks were in heaps of bags around the tents. There was even a brewery and food truck there. One of the main attractions was the alpaca and sheep shearing, but we got there a little too late to see a demonstration. They have some awesome photos from the 2015 festival though.

We walked around to each vendor and I was in fiber heaven! One of my favorite vendors, Purple Lamb,  featured a “make your own art batts” where you could choose the types of fiber and color scheme and use her drum carder to prepare the batt. Drum carders are one of those high priced items (about $575 or higher) that most beginners don’t have access to so it was nice of her to share and make the experience interactive. I happened to like her pre-made ones so I picked up some of those – but what a cool idea!

Another vendor, Old School Wool, mentioned she priced things a little lower than normal to get you “to come to the dark side and start spinning.” Yep, it worked. I picked up some of her roving that was very light and airy with beautiful colors of gold, green and orange.

I was happy to meet the spinner from Lollipop Acres Fiber from Chino Valley. Her yarn was the first hand spun yarn I had ever purchased and I happily exclaimed, “I’ve bought your yarn!” To which she smiled and replied, “Thank you!” It’s about as close to meeting a celebrity as I’ve ever gotten.

There were also demonstrations, workshops, and a competition with multiple categories. It was so neat to see people gathered around their spinning wheels and enjoying each other’s company. This is only the second year of the festival and it has grown a lot from last year. Next year, I hope to enter something into the competition, and perhaps, even be a vendor!

Hope you had a chance to check it out! Let me know what your favorite part was.

Happy Crafting!

~Kori