Fall Fiber Day 2024

Saturday, September 28, was fall Fiber Day at the Ellison’s sheep farm in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. I love, love, love Fiber Day.

You never know what the weather is going to be for Fiber Day, but you do know there will be amazing people doing cool things. Joanie and Dave are wonderful and generous hosts of this semi annual event. My friend Mary Lou came up from the Twin Cities for the weekend, to visit with me and attend Fiber Day. Meanwhile, my husband and two of his fishing friends from the cities were having a guy weekend at our extended family cabin, down the road from our house.

Both spring and fall Fiber Day can be cold, wet, or windy, or any combination of those conditions. We have been having stretches of above normal temperatures here in Minnesota this fall. There was a lot of rain over the summer, but none since the beginning of September. Fall Fiber Day was dry with a high was 85 F, which is very warm for late September in Minnesota. Meanwhile I saw a report that it got up to 117 F in Phoenix that day. The southeast states were dealing with devastation from Hurricane Helene, and now there is another hurricane about to hit. I was supposed to go to Asheville with some friends in the middle of October, but that trip has been cancelled.

Whatever the weather, I love seeing so many colors and textures, and different ways people are using fiber for art and functional products at Fiber Day. I don’t know who made this beautiful needle felted “painting” that was set up on an easel in the yard.

Following are a couple of photos taken looking out over the Ellison’s property from the back yard.

Joanie’s sister-in-law had a mini class in the kitchen on knitting cuff down socks. I sat in on the class for awhile, working on a pair of toe up socks that were almost done. I got some tips for future sock knitting and enjoyed the camaraderie.

I am so close to finishing this pair of self striping socks for my son. Just a few more rows of cuff to go.

Grandma Alice, age late 90’s, was working at her Saori weaving loom on the deck. Saori looms are sort of a cross between a rigid heddle loom and a floor loom with two shafts, designed for free form art projects. Grandma Alice was working on a pretty plain weave scarf.

A man I did not recognize walked past with a giant garbage can lid “tray” of raw wool fleece from the Ellison’s sheep. He was going to soak it in Joanie’s washing machine to remove the dirt and lanolin. I don’t know what he was going to do with it after that.

As usual, I brought my spinning wheel with a project underway. This pretty variegated blue and white batt was purchased at a Fiber Festival. Usually I card my own batts with wool and other fibers from my stash, but this ready to go batt was too tempting. I peeled off a strip from the batt for spinning.

Last spring at Fiber Day, and again this fall, attendees were encouraged to bring hand made clothing and accessories that were not being worn or did not fit, to offer up for someone else to love and use. I brought a few items I had knitted, and some store samples that came from my yarn shop inventory purchase in 2018.

A woman I had met at Fiber Day in years past, Athena, took a headband I knit a long time ago. It did not fit or look right on my head, and was not a good color for me. She loved the headband and was so excited to have it!

Athena brought a Kromski Minstril spinning wheel that was not right for her. It was a perfectly good wheel, but due to a knee replacement she was having trouble using it. She bought a different spinning wheel that worked better for her, and was offering this Kromski wheel up for free. A year and a half ago my cousin’s young adult daughter, Chelsea, had come to spring fiber day. She was a prolific crocheter, and was very interested in learning to spin. I gave her some instruction on my spinning wheel and she caught on right away. Chelsea wanted to have her own wheel, but a new one is expensive and it can be hit or miss finding a good used spinning wheel. I texted Chelsea right away to see if she wanted this wheel, after spinning on it myself to make sure it would be suitable for her. Chelsea said Yes, so I brought it home. She is super excited and I will bring it to her in the Twin Cities the next time we go there.

Usually at Fiber Day I use the big electric drum carder to blend wool and other fibers into batts for spinning. I already have a lot fiber that is prepped to spin, but I had another idea. I have been working (for a long time) on spinning a commercially prepared hand dyed “braid” of merino wool. It is beautiful but requires quite a lot of unfolding, fluffing out, separating, and pre-drafting in order to spin without major frustration. I thought maybe if I ran it through the drum carder that would get it in a better state for easier spinning.

After a short time I decided not to continue carding the pretty braid. In order to feed the wool through the machine, I had to unroll, fluff, and separate the fiber. After that it was almost ready to spin and did not need to be run through the drum carder, and I did not like the way the batt was looking. The beautiful colors were all melding together into a grayish tan with some yellow. Also it was too hot standing in the direct sun where the drum carder was set up. The following photo was taken later back at my house, showing some of the original braid, one bobbin of it that I had already spun, and the part that I ran through the drum carder. It looks more gray in the photo than it really is, and there is more yellow.

Someone brought these felted notebook covers for show and tell at Fiber Day. I don’t know how they got the leaf designs on, but they are so pretty!

A group of musicians had a jam session in the living room.

Sometimes I do a dyeing project at Fiber Day. There are dye pots over a fire, ready to go for dyeing wool and other animal fibers. Joanie has fleece and yarn for purchase, along with supplies for dyeing. Last time I dyed some 100% linen yarn in jars using cold water, with the right type of dye for that. I did not feel like doing any dyeing this time. I was busy enough with my spinning, knitting, a bit of carding, and visiting with people.

This young cat was hiding in a window well. I bet her fur would be lovely blended with some wool fiber.

At the end of the afternoon I went to get my car from where it was parked in a field down the long driveway. As I started to drive the car toward the house to load up all the stuff we had brought with us, there was a terrible scraping noise. It turned out there was a big mangled piece of metal hanging off the underside of the car near the front. I was worried that I was going to have to call AAA, and have Wayne come and get us. I backed up so I was not blocking the driveway and walked back to the house to consult with Dave Ellison. Dave figured out that a “heat shield” had come loose, and he was able to unscrew what was left of it and get it off. He assured me there was no problem driving the car without the heat shield. We agreed that it must have already been loose before it caught on something when I drove the car on the field.

I was worried Wayne would give me a hard time about driving on that field and doing a bad thing to the car, but he understood the situation and had an idea about how and when the heat shield had come loose.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing, hanging out with my friend and working on our projects. Knowing that Wayne was at the cabin with his friends, and with Mary Lou visiting, I could call it a fiber retreat. Whatever chores I might have been doing were happily postponed that weekend.

Click here for a link to my post about Spring Fiber Day 2024, when I did some dyeing, and carding on my blending board.