Spintastic!

Had so much fun meeting some very talented fiber artists last Sunday!

Dayna Mankowski, fiber artist and owner of Madison Wool, brought a field trip of knitters, felters, and spinners to Morning Star Meadows following a eating-extravaganza at S & P Oyster in Mystic.

They all arrived with their “Food and Fiber Field Trip” buttons, wheels, needles, lovely hand knit or woven sweaters, hats and accessories (can you say ‘wool jewelry’?!) and smiling faces, and we took them to the barn to get set up and peruse the fall fleeces prior to meeting the Fiber Stars of the day – the sheep!

I think they all enjoyed our walk-about after their big meal.

 

 

 

Everyone wanted to meet the sheep whose fleece they were purchasing that day.  A little handful of corn helped facilitate that!

 

 

We headed back to the barn for tea and fiber fellowship!

 

It was amazing to watch Dayna as she dove right into her newly purchased bag of raw lamb’s fleece and begin creating some lovely thick yarn!

 

I was treadling away at my very uninspired thin and even (relatively!) spun yarn.  I was intrigued to watch a true fiber artist at work!

And Dayna was SO kind to bring me one of her art batts that she custom made for me – and even named for me!

After they all went home, as dusk was approaching and the barn was getting chilly, I started to think how fun it would be to spin this fun fiber, and soon got down to it!

Here’s the batt opened up

I had Dayna show me how to add the curly locks, so now it was time to see if I could do it!   Apparently there are no “mistakes” with art yarn!

Here’s the beginning of it

Ok – now THIS is fun!  Had to let the girls have a try!

And this is what we ended up with!  Rainbow sparkle goodness!  Now to decide what to make with it!  I’m sure that will be nearly as fun!

Thank you, Dayna and all who attended our first Fiber Field Trip!  We hope you’ll be back again soon!  Thank you for all of your purchases, and we hope you will share photos of your fiber art with us!!

 

And for the rest of you – if you have time at the end of November, you can visit a great group of artists – including Dayna and her fiber artist friend Laura Lyons, whom I was privileged to meet here on Sunday, at their Open Studios for Shoreline Arts Trail 2013!  There’s something for everyone!