Tuesday 23 August 2011

All the Fun of the Feis

A feis (pronounced fesh) is a traditional Irish music festival. Last weekend one of the lovely Irish knitters WrapNTurn (Twitter link) hosted the first FibreFeis in her fabulous home in County Cork. It was a huge hit, with knitters, spinners and crocheters coming from all over Ireland to join the fun.

Camping facilities were available in the grounds of Sue's home:


I, however chose to stay in a hotel in Cork city, about an hours drive away. In my defence, hubby and Alice came down too and we made a long weekend holiday type thing out of it. The sun Gods shone on us and we had a really lovely afternoon sitting on the deck, chatting (drinking wine), swapping tips and ogling each others yarns & projects.



Our very own talented designer, Carol Feller came along and brought two trunks full of her designs, including those in her new book, Contemporary Irish Knits (Amazon Link). There was much ooh-ing and aah-ing and squeezing and trying on of the garments. Great fun!


It wasn't long before we had the first FO of the feis, a lovely headband.

Then the big guns came out and people set up their wheels and started spinning on their spindles. I could watch this all day. It's truly fascinating to me. I'm afraid to try it though, what if I really liked it and then had to go and buy roving, wheels etc to do it? Oh no. I just can't afford to fall for another craft.



Everyone got involved in the craftiness. Even my hubby tried spinning! I was in total shock. I cut his face out of the photo as he'd go bananas if I published him on the internet, so be content with a hand and trust me when I say it belongs to him!


Once the sun went down, a pit was dug and a fire was lit.  Everyone settled round the fire in their snuggly clothes to have a chat and make smores. OMG! Smores! They were ridiculously good. I'd never had a "proper" one before. I'll definitely be having a proper one again! Mmm.



Fibre Feis was a huge success. Thanks so much Sue for opening your beautiful home to us all and being such a terrific hostess! Roll on next year.

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