Dallas and Tulsa
We had such fun last weekend. Peggy and I went up to check out the Fiber Christmas in July Festival in Kellyville, OK. We have been encouraged to apply to be vendors there but decided before we jumped into that we would do a road trip. Kellyville is just 20 miles southwest of Tulsa. It brought back memories of kids and horses and horse trailers all headed in a caravan up to horse shows in Tulsa. Back then it took about 12 hours to get from here to there. We knew it would be quicker with just two of us and no trailer and we were right.
But first we stopped in Dallas. Peggy is in Dallas on business fairly often but generally with no time to check out the yarn shops. We decided to do our very own yarn crawl across Dallas on our way up to Tulsa. What a blast! We left here on Wednesday morning and got to Dallas with no trouble by lunch. We stopped at one weaving shop and a couple of yarn shops before we met Peggy's boss for a great casual dinner. Yes, Manny's brisket tacos are truly amazing! I had driven past Dallas on the interstate more times than I could count but had never really seen the city. It is more lovely than I could have imagined.
Thursday morning we shopped at two more yarn shops before discovering this great New York style deli that had great cheese blintzes. Having had a great breakfast/lunch we headed up the road to Tulsa.
I need to point out that my eyes are alwarys bigger than my stomach when it comes to yarn. There are so many beautiful colors and fiber blends! Yarn stores go to a great deal of trouble to have wonderful examples of what you can make with their yarn. I always buy more than I can reasonable expect to knit or weave before I want to go back to another yarn store. This trip I was focused on yarns that have linen in them but I found so many other yarns too!
The drive to Tulsa was uneventful, which is the nicest thing you can say about any car trip. We got there is plenty of time to check into the hotel and find some dinner. The fiber festival started at noon on Friday and we had a class that started at 1 pm. Mary Berry of FancyFibers.com taught a Cricket weaving class using hand painted yarn to make a faux ikat scarf. True ikat requires dyeing both the warp and weft yarns very specifically so they will form a figure when woven together. This class used hand painted yarn to set a similar look. It was fun and a technique we will work on in the future.
We also took a natural dye class that looked carefully and closely at red dyes - cochineal and madder. I have madder growing in one of my garden bins and I'm so glad I took this class before I started digging up the roots. We got a stunning red in the class that Peggy and I have never been able to get here at home. These are techniques we will remember and use in the future.
There were fun vendors at the fiber festival that we hadn't seen before. It was great to find some more fiber to spin!
The trip was an unqualified success! We saw old friends and old haunts, met new friends, ate well and bought lots of fiber and yarn. It's all good!