Check out the DFW Fiber Fest

If you live in or near Texas, you’ll probably want to check out and hopefully make plans to attend the DFW Fiber Fest, which takes place Sept. 14-17 at the Irving Convention Center.

In addition to the vendor hall with more than 100 vendors, there will be morning and afternoon on the Thursday and Friday of the festival, as well as morning, afternoon and evening classes on Saturday, and classes on Sunday morning. Some of the classes are all day deep dives into projects or techniques.

Jean over at Bead Biz sent me information about the festival, so I wanted to mention her classes in particular (she’s also a vendor). She’s teaching different ways to add beads to a cast on and bind off (two different classes; that’s her shawl above) as well as wisdom on starting a craft business.

In addition you’ll find a ton of other classes such as how to cross stitch on knitting, different ways to shape the top of a hat, spinning Shetland wool, felted mermaids, punch needle bees, loom knitting, double knitting, ergonomics and more.

As part of the event there’s a makealong for both knitters and crocheters, who can get a special discount on a shawl pattern to make prior to the event.

I know a lot of these vendors and teachers have lost money because of Stitches shutting down, so if you’re in the area it would be great to show them some support. (The beginning of that story, where Stitches reported it was closing, is here, with more details here if you’re not caught up on it.)

Have you ever been to DFW Fiber Fest? It sounds like a great event but I’d love to hear about your experience if you have gone or are planning to attend this year.

[Photo: Jean Elizabeth Glass.]

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a fun project to play with brioche knitting, check out the My Buddy knitting pattern/recipe from Casuarinagirl on Ravelry.

This project doesn’t include a brioche tutorial, so it’s good to know the basics, including how to increase and decrease, but you can always practice on a swatch before you start the project if you want.

The design is meant to be flexible for the yarn you have and what size and shape of project you want to make, from a skinny neck scarf to a asymmetrical triangle or a more classic triangular shape.

The shape you end up with will depend on how often you increase (and then decrease on the other side). The pattern mentions increasing every fourth, fifth or six row (and the one shown increases and decreases every sixth row) but you can do it even more or less often depending on the shape you’re looking for an how much yarn you want to use.

You can work to whatever depth you would like, or use almost half of the yarn you have set aside for the project and begin decreasing.

When it comes to yarn, she used three strands of yarn held together to make a super fluffy shawl, but you can work it with whatever yarn and needles you like to make a wrap that’s all your own.

If you are new to brioche (or to increasing and decreasing in brioche) it might be a good idea to make a little scarf or head wrap first before diving in to the bigger pattern, just so you’re more comfortable with the technique. Or just give it a go; nothing about brioche knitting is that difficult. (But you might want to use a lifeline because I find brioche hard to rip out or fix mistakes in properly.)

You can grab the free pattern for the Buddy Wrap on Ravelry.

[Photo: Casuarinagirl]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?