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Every year I look forward to a local fiber festival called the Maine Fiber Frolic. It's held the first weekend of June and is filled with local vendors and farms that all share one thing in common; a love of fiber. Now, I grew up going to this event as a kid but, it wasn't until last year that I really felt like I was a part of this widespread fiber community. There's no prerequisites to feel the part, I believe if you just like touching yarn that already makes you a part of the community but, for myself it wasn't until I found a joy in knitting that I felt like I was integrated.
When I attended last year in 2023 it had been over a full year I had been knitting and raising my satin angora rabbit, Luna, who I had purchased from her breeder I met at the Fiber Frolic in 2022. Meaning to say I was loaded with knitting projects, fiber, and enthusiasm to share my new found experience with others who where attending.
The frolic has always had fleece, yarn, and knitting judging but, until 2023 I hadn't paid much attention until I had my own to enter. I ended up entering Luna's fiber in the judging contest and was awarded best of show as well as three knitted items and won first place with the hat I entered. When I raced back with my best of show ribbon and my fiber to put it in the fiber tent to sell, I ended up selling it immediately after striking a conversation with a stranger who noticed the ribbon and that conversation was overheard from others who came over to talk to me. I ended up talking the whole weekend about my love of fiber and knitting with so many new people and even some I had seen at my local yarn shop I hadn't known how to strike up a conversation with.
That might sound like a simple feat but, going to the fiber frolic as a kid I just felt like a kid going to a thing but, as an adult I felt like I was being seen as an equal. I don't have the greatest self confidence and am naturally introverted so I believe I needed the validation of winning a few judging contests to give me that second opinion that my items I love to create are of value.
This year at the frolic I entered in all the same contests with new items but, I felt so much more at ease now knowing the process of where to go and what forms to fill out I was able to hang back and more easily converse. My first stop was the bunny barn for the fiber judging. As I was helping the judge set up another person wandered over and I asked if they had entered some rabbit fiber or where just watching. They had entered and more surprisingly they remembered me from the year before! She said we talked about her putting fiber in the show because last year she didn't and I told her how easy it was and that she should for the coming year. Here she was! We talked with the judge and both learned a bunch about what they were looking for among the piles of floof. I ended up having some shorter belly fiber in my entry and the the lady next to me took the win which was so much fun to see. We laughed that her winning rabbit, Peanut, who had made the fiber would be so proud with their ribbon. I then took my fiber back to the fleece barn and within a few hours it all sold!
My next stop was to see how my knitted items fared in the judging and to my surprise my Smorgasbord shawl by Stephen West won first place with my Orchid Dragon shawl by Alexandra Davidoff coming in second. I had also entered a garment, the Mini Mock Neck Tank by Jessie Mead Designs, that didn't win but, I was eager to learn how to improve so I entered it and learned my tension was slightly off on my ribbing.
This year I didn't care about the validation of winning any contests, what I gleaned the most was learning how to improve in my craft. I ended up meeting and talking to the winner of the Make it with Fiber contest who had made an incredible cardigan showcasing 14 different breeds of sheep and was all handspun with antler buttons. Over the course of the weekend I also decided to start my first colorwork cardigan and knew there were two techniques I would need to learn and found out they were the two techniques also used in the cardigan that won. They had even learned them for the first time to make their cardigan and she let me take a look at how the ladder back jacquard (new technique 1) was used on the inside and how she sewed her steek (new technique 2) before cutting the cardigan open. That conversation gave me the confidence to cast on the Halibut Cardigan by Boyland knitworks and I am happy to say I have completed 17 successful rows of colorwork.
I had many other conversations that have inspired me in my craft but, they will be for other posts at another time. Knitting is one of these crafts that is a rabbit hole for so much more and can divert into so many tunnels so until my next post, happy fiber arts!
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