Wakkerstroom Fibre Fair

So, these pictures are from the Wakkerstroom Natural Fibres and Handcrafts Fair. This was the fifth year that the fair has been held and it's heaven for anyone interested in natural fibres and in spinning, weaving, embroidery, basically any of the fibre arts.

This is the Mistique Alpacas table. Lovely pure alpaca and alpaca/merino blends. Mistique Alpacas is situated in Wakkerstroom and can be visited. It's owned by Fenella and Romney and their contact details can be found on this blog. Fenella organizes the fair every year and the blog I've linked to has details of the Fibre Fair and workshops available.

This table had the most beautiful hand-dyed yarns. Unfortunately no card but I'll see if I can get contact details from Fenella and will put them up.

This is Glynis Brooke. She's the Ashford stockist for South Africa. Campbell crafts stopped bringing in Ashford products not too long ago and Glynis has become the new supplier. Ashford does spinning wheels, looms, fibre and books dealing with all of the above. She can be contacted at glynis@brooklands.co.za.

This is me. I'm spinning on a really nice little tabletop spinning wheel. It is turned by hand and is good where space is at a premium. They are made by Hannes van der Merwe. He also does pickers, swifts and drop spindles. He can be contacted at donkeyvalley@yahoo.com. He also (wait for it) knits his own fair-isle socks!

We went driving around all over Wakkerstroom and the surrounding area, which gave me enough time to knit this tablet pc cover in the car. Really easy. I cast on what looked like enough stitches (and used the very scientific method of measuring it with my hand, on my lap, in a car moving along rough dirt roads). When we got back to the house, I discovered that (to my complete surprise...) my measuring method hadn't worked and the piece was too short. I then picked up stitches along one edge and did some 2x2 ribbing until the sleeve was long enough. The yarn is Elle Perfect Scarf, colour Galaxy and I used just over half of the ball to make the sleeve.

We then visited Mistique Alpacas. This is one of them. She is so pretty I had an awful urge to bundle her into the backseat of the car and smuggle her home. Fenella takes you on a tour of the place, giving you a lot of background information on the animals and you get to meet and feed them. I might also have fallen down and bought even more handspun alpaca while I was there, but hey - I'm only human. I bet you would have done the same...

King of the castle!

This is a view from Wonderhoogte. Apparently you can see all the way to the Drakensberg on a clear day.