Ok… I have a mixed review of the Fiber Festival, at least from a crochet afficionado perspective.
1) Seeing Myra was awesome, Myra Wood is someone I can’t brag about enough. She is talented, fun, professional, and one of the most lovely people I’ve ever met. If you haven’t got her book Creative Crocheted Lace, get it! Go to her website http://www.myrawood.com and order it there!
2) I purchased a beautiful glass g hook from Ernst Finely Crafted Glass…OMG it’s delightful…it’s so beautiful. I’m tooo tired to scan it right now, I definately will some time this week. www.glasspens.com I certified them Crochet Friendly! No bias against us at all! Just glad to make a sale 
3) I also purchased another Asciano Hook…actually two, one for my daughter who got a lovely J rosewood hook…and I will get mine in the mail, I’m having a Tulipwood handle have a size c , clover hook head put in it 
Yummers. It was so hard to decide.
Asciano? VERY crochet friendly! www.ascianofiberartstools.com
4) Last but not least, I went to Crown Mountain Farms booth! Some of my favorite people. I have enjoyed vending besides them in past years at the Seattle Knitting Expo… I had a lovely time visiting with Klaus and discussing what it meant to be crochet friendly, since he really like the Set My Picot Free T-shirt I had on What was awesome? He was so shocked to think that anyone would be crochet unfriendly! This is a man who loves fiber! He just said that he doesn’t get many crochet customers, so I taught him how to sell his yarn (edited to add: To crocheters) :) And explained why you get less crocheters at an event like Madrona…you’ll have to read a forth coming post on the the Crochet Liberation Front Blog about that…
Anyway, for GORGEOUS handspun & mill spun yarns, WONDERFUL rovings! I picked up two lovely bunches of Corriedale roving (dyed by Klaus), and two wonderful half pounds of baby camel and tussah silk blend roving(one for my daughter and one for me…yes I do spoil her, but she’s good and deserves it)…
Let’s not talk about how much money I spent today…I’ll just pretend it was all on sale and we’ll all be fine with that, right? Right…
So, here’s the “down side” of the review.
a) I saw more sock yarn than I ever wanted to see in my life.
b) There were only three stores that were crochet friendly, to my definition…and very few that were customer friendly in general. Given I work a booth myself, I have certain standards…No matter how tired I am, it’s smile and say hello.
c) It was awesome to see the spinners there, and I’ve seen the classes, and it’s all about knit knit and more knit…OMG give me a break, there are more things to spin for than knit. I mean be creative, offer classes for spinning needle point thread, heck I’ve done it.
Oh and what passes for lace weight yarn? Most of what I saw was too big for my purposes, even my daughter pointed that out to me…Most of it was what I would consider sock weight. But, hey I make yarn and I’m picky.
Crochet was represented, but quietly…and well that’s a shame. People wonder why we get cranky. Well, here’s why. We are a fiber art or a craft, however you wish to look at it, all on our own. I don’t like the whole “who’s better” arguement, because I think it’s a silly one to have. I just like being able to go somewhere are feel some kind of kinship…the only kinship I could strike up in a group setting, was over weaving…and hey that was cool…even though I am not so good at warping.
With our t-shirts on, my daughter and I were stared at like we were from another planet…I figured that would be the case. I had on a lovely sweater, and she was sporting a beautiful hat I have made…lace crown with tunisian fun fur brim…(the blue brings out her pretty eyes)…We weren’t dressed down, we were making a statement…and it was obvious very few weren’t biased against crochet…
I find that sad. Not for me. I don’t need their approval. I know what I do is lovely and beautiful…I feel sad for the fiber arts community. It’s missing out on a lot of customers, consumers, and creative people when the atmosphere is less than friendly for an art or craft… Man, I wonder how tatters feel? Or macrame artists?
For those of you who tat or do macrame, hats off to you guys, you have it worse than we hookers I must imagine…
