While we wait for the Comic-con reports from the other Defective Geekers, I’ll tell you about the convention I attended this weekend. It was certainly a geeky convention, but not a conventional one.

I attended Fibre-East today. I heard about it by chance on Ravelry and it’s not far from where I live, so a bunch of friends and myself made a day of it.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect, having never been to a fibre festival before, but I really enjoyed it. It was quite small, and not very busy, but we did go on the Sunday. The Saturday had been very busy, apparently. But, I was actually pleased it was relatively quiet. It made it easier to talk to stall attendants and view the shearing demo.

YUP. A shearing demonstration. Video here! Not something I want to have a go at any time soon, but it was neat to see how it was done. What was even cooler was that they immediately took the sheared wool to the tent next door and started to spin it. As soon as it was spun, someone started to knit it. So, by the end of the day, they’d take the wool that had been on the sheep and made a sweater. Pretty hardcore. I chatted with one of the ladies participating and she said she really didn’t like how the wool felt in that unwashed state. It was really greasy with lanolin and I imagine quite rough.

There were two marquees with stalls. Most of it was, unsurprisingly, unspun wool. It was gorgeous! So many pretty colours.

But, there was a large quantity of spun wool that was very tempting.

It was a great chance to support local spinners and dyers. I even tried my hand at drop spinning! I bought a little kit, I might do another post when I give it a go.

More photos here