Bright and early (okay, after 9pm isn’t that early) Yarnivorous zoomed us across the city and south to the Geelong Fibre Forum Open Day.

In the ‘heathen market’, (which, ironically, was held in a church) we admired some lovely bookbinding, felting, glass beadwork, etc. I bought some wooden beads:

And a resin bead with either a flower or nut inside. It’s hard to tell – very mysterious! And very pretty.

Then we headed across to the Traders Rooms. First upstairs, where there was a Room With No Pricetags and a Room Full of Tempting Roving. I found myself really wanting to buy roving, even though I don’t have a spinning wheel and didn’t take well to drop spindling. I kept wondering if I separated the rowing into thinner lengths, could I weave with it without having to spin it first? I saw a woman weaving with untreated fleece, sticky with grease, in Orkney last year.

In the larger trader room on ground level, I bought some more buttons:

All in sizes and numbers that might suit knitted garments. Every time I look in my button stash the buttons are either too big, too small or there aren’t enough of them.

I also bought some dye:

And yes, I did buy yarn. Guess what it’s made of?

Banana! I’m a sucker for whacky stuff. I’m of two minds whether this would make a nice garment. It’s softish, but it has the weightiness of cotton, so I reckon it would have the same limitations.

(Pictured with it is some Japanese milk chocolate the beau found the other day. Inspecting the ingredients, I was relieved to see cocoa butter listed, and no yukky vegetable oil substitute. I’ll let you know what it’s like.)

All in all a pleasant morning. I showed Lynne the shop I’d found in Geelong a few weeks back, Web of Wool. Turns out it’s not the shop in Geelong that has Bendy wool in a back room. It was open, though closing up, so we got to have a look.

Then we headed home. Having told Lynne about my first attempt at drop spindling, I dragged out the spindle and roving. She showed me how to Andean ply, and left me happily plying my first bit of handspun. But that, I think, is a story for another day.