Weekend Fun
Sep. 28th, 2021 07:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeI went to a Ren Faire this weekend! It was super fun!
My sibling Z has limited time off right now because they work in film and things are Happening right now. They wrapped a shoot on Wednesday and the next shoot starts this week. The Ren Faire is only open until this weekend, so we managed to swing a single day in and it was great!
I drove down, easy drive both ways, about two hours. Z took the shuttle bus from the city.
The website had advised drivers to get there at 9:30 because of it backing up and boy howdy were they correct. The faire is in the kinda the middle of nowhere and the road was backed up when I got there. I got directed to the free, further parking because I was in a truck. There was a shuttle but the walk over was through a nice wooded area and was quite lovely. I got into line about five minutes before the gates opened and then did the line shuffle/crowd shuffle over.
Fully a third of the crowd were wearing masks and probably 3/4 of the vendors were wearing masks, which makes sense because they have so many people in and out. Honestly, in a normal year, they probably get super powered con crud. Me and Z wore masks the whole time which I felt good about because we were in close quarters sometimes.
There was a bag check, which makes sense and I did like the phone ticket thing as well.
The whole area actually isn't very big but because of how wooded it was and how winding and confusing the roads were, it gave the impression of not being super crowded except in one or two more open areas. It was a pretty cool effect. I wandered around for a bit since Z's bus was going to get in at 11. At 11:10, I realized that despite the 4G service and full cell bars, the reception was very bad and Z had already arrived.
Due to Circumstances, Z brought a backpack with things for a trip to visit our parents that night. So we walked out and dropped the bag in my truck and went back to the faire.
We saw a glassblowing demo and the birds of prey exhibition and ate some food and wandered around. We bought some stuff, some really nice prints, some incredible tiny glass sculptures and a nice leather belt.
We had a lot of fun and left at 3. Listen, we were tired. I dropped Z at the train station so they could get back earlier in the day than taking the bus, which leaves there at 6:45. Wild.
And then Sunday, I went to the local fiber festival! It's a pretty small festival, only taking up a few buildings and a very small section of the fairgrounds. Not a ton of people go to it, but I suspect the fees are small for vendors. I met up withdragonlady7 and her mom and we wandered around.
I took notes as we wandered because my big thing with festivals is that I can never remember which exact things I want by the end of it and I don't want to impulse buy my budget down too much in case there's an expensive thing I want. So I had a little notebook and made notes on fiber/price/color and at the end, figured out what I wanted.
We watched the sheepdog working and then they wandered off and I went and bought things.
I bought:
I'm super excited about this because the place I had been buying washed fleece from (Clemes & Clemes) has really nice fleeces but they aren't generally whole fleeces and also they are really expensive. Some of the previous things I've gotten range from $60-80 per pound.
A good weekend!
My sibling Z has limited time off right now because they work in film and things are Happening right now. They wrapped a shoot on Wednesday and the next shoot starts this week. The Ren Faire is only open until this weekend, so we managed to swing a single day in and it was great!
I drove down, easy drive both ways, about two hours. Z took the shuttle bus from the city.
The website had advised drivers to get there at 9:30 because of it backing up and boy howdy were they correct. The faire is in the kinda the middle of nowhere and the road was backed up when I got there. I got directed to the free, further parking because I was in a truck. There was a shuttle but the walk over was through a nice wooded area and was quite lovely. I got into line about five minutes before the gates opened and then did the line shuffle/crowd shuffle over.
Fully a third of the crowd were wearing masks and probably 3/4 of the vendors were wearing masks, which makes sense because they have so many people in and out. Honestly, in a normal year, they probably get super powered con crud. Me and Z wore masks the whole time which I felt good about because we were in close quarters sometimes.
There was a bag check, which makes sense and I did like the phone ticket thing as well.
The whole area actually isn't very big but because of how wooded it was and how winding and confusing the roads were, it gave the impression of not being super crowded except in one or two more open areas. It was a pretty cool effect. I wandered around for a bit since Z's bus was going to get in at 11. At 11:10, I realized that despite the 4G service and full cell bars, the reception was very bad and Z had already arrived.
Due to Circumstances, Z brought a backpack with things for a trip to visit our parents that night. So we walked out and dropped the bag in my truck and went back to the faire.
We saw a glassblowing demo and the birds of prey exhibition and ate some food and wandered around. We bought some stuff, some really nice prints, some incredible tiny glass sculptures and a nice leather belt.
We had a lot of fun and left at 3. Listen, we were tired. I dropped Z at the train station so they could get back earlier in the day than taking the bus, which leaves there at 6:45. Wild.
And then Sunday, I went to the local fiber festival! It's a pretty small festival, only taking up a few buildings and a very small section of the fairgrounds. Not a ton of people go to it, but I suspect the fees are small for vendors. I met up with
dragonlady7 and her mom and we wandered around. I took notes as we wandered because my big thing with festivals is that I can never remember which exact things I want by the end of it and I don't want to impulse buy my budget down too much in case there's an expensive thing I want. So I had a little notebook and made notes on fiber/price/color and at the end, figured out what I wanted.
We watched the sheepdog working and then they wandered off and I went and bought things.
I bought:
- 3 pounds of Border Leicester/BFL cross roving in white, light grey and dark grey because they price was incredibly good ($24/lb!!!!) and I do love some natural colored roving. I was thinking originally that I would make a sweater out of half and then weave with the other half but I'm now thinking about making some kind of absurdly large cloak situation
- 1 lb of PURPLE mixed breed roving - it was a nice deep purple. I love purple. that's all.
- 4 oz gotland roving - this will be spun up into weft for the weaving project I've got planned. Probably. Maybe. It was also pretty cheap.
- 4 oz Romney lamb roving - impulse buy at the end, why not
- two large bags of weaving cone ends, leftover yarn for $10 a bag. B got the third one and we are planning to exchange some of the colors tomorrow
- 3.7 pound Romney fleece - !!!!!!!!!!!! Fleece!!! ($14/lb)
I'm super excited about this because the place I had been buying washed fleece from (Clemes & Clemes) has really nice fleeces but they aren't generally whole fleeces and also they are really expensive. Some of the previous things I've gotten range from $60-80 per pound.
A good weekend!
