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I first heard about SAFF, Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, from the girls over at just one more row podcast. Dana and Brittany went on and on about how this show is one of their favorites, and Dana would be vending this year. SAFF happens outside of Asheville, which is only 2 1/2 hours from us, so I talked Sam into making a day of it and going.
This was my first fiber festival and I did some groundwork before going. I took a look at the vendor list located on the website and took a look at the websites of the vendors I wanted to go to. Since it was my first fiber festival and we were only there for a few hours, I wanted to make sure I got to these places. I then set a budget of what I wanted to spend and created a note on my phone of the vendors and items that I was interested in.
Once I got to the festival, I was completely overtaken with the smaller farms that were there. I did get a few items off of my list, but as a spinner I was drawn to the fibers that I haven't been able to spin yet. My tactic changed and I ended up buying those things that I couldn't get on the internet. I took cards and contact information for the farms so that I can contact them later about purchasing fiber straight from them.
From the left and counter-clockwise....
I managed to happen upon the Copper Corgi booth out of Savannah, GA. I fell in love with this vendor and will definitely be ordering from her again because she has breed specific selections as well as great prices. I purchased a jacob braid from her and a 500+ yard skein of undyed organic superwash merino. I'm thinking the yarn would make a beautiful textured cowl!
The brown and white swirl is BFL Swirl from the amazing Gales Art. I have always loved her colorways but wanted to go with something undyed since I haven't spun BFL swirl yet.
The bright neon skeins of yarn in the middle along with the purple trio is from Miss Babs! One of my favorite dyers!The trio was a planned purchase for the color affection and the neon fingering skeins were picked out from a distance by my hubby. I have always wanted to knit the color affection shawl and could never find the right color trio so I knew that since Miss Babs matches the colors for you, this would be the perfect yarn for the shawl! The skeins for Sam are just up his alley...he likes the brights. One in the envy me colorway and the other in zombie apocalypse. They will obviously be something for him...he's so deserving since he picked these out from 100 yards away..haha!
I was also able to pick up a few ounces of cormo and a cormo-dorsett blend from the nice ladies at Harmony Wool Alpacas and Your Daily Fiber which I can't seem to find a website for.
We even picked up some homemade apple butter and a homemade berry blend jam that it out of this world from Firelight Farms in Pennsylvania. She had beautiful coopsworth and jacob undyed rovings as well and I plan to contact her soon to get some in the mail to me!
Xander loved the livestock, specifically this gorgeous sheep. He came right up to Xander and Xander learned to associate sheep with "baaaa". He would ask every vendor we talked to if they had sheep. They would all laugh because even though they didn't have the actual sheep with them, they still had the fiber. I fell in love with the beautiful blue-ribbon-winning alpaca. I was able to take a video of him (or her?) and it was amazing. So beautiful!
I was a total fangirl and even got to meet Dana and Brittany from Just one more row podcast. I was such a dork that I didn't even get a picture with them....I told Sam that I realized after how awkward I must have been but they really are as great in person as they sound on the podcast! I didn't meet anyone else that I "know" through ravelry or instagram, but after posting many pictures of the day, I realized that many people that I "knew" were there as well. Next year, I plan to make a point to meet more people.
This was such a great day and Sam and I have even talked about making it an overnight thing next year. He seemed to really enjoy it and was up for going back again next year. Besides, Asheville is such a fun town and with the Biltmore Estate there and other amazing restaurants and a LYS, it makes for a great getaway.
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