Ventura County Fair Wool Spinning Competition

Ventura County Fair's Wool Spinning competition was today, and Craftydiver invited me to carpool with her to the competition. :) That was lucky because gas would have other wise cost a pretty penny.

Craftydiver and I had to endure quite a bit of traffic on the way up. (Well, mostly she had to endure it, since I just had to sit there.) However, we got there just in time for the competition, with enough time to use the restroom and relax. The competition was split into seven classes: Novice Spinning Wheel, Novice Spindle, Intermediate Spinning Wheel, Intermediate Spindle, Advanced Spinning Wheel, Advanced Spindle, and Masters Class. I think you have to win in the Advanced Class to move onto the Masters Class. Every class can have up to five placements, depending on the number of participants. Basically, if you show up you'll likely win something. Today, there were nine people in the competition only. There were three in the Beginner's Wheel, two in Intermediate Wheel, four in Advanced Wheel, and I'm fairly sure no one participated in the spindle competition even though every one brought a spindle. Wait, One person participated in Beginner Spindle I believe, but I think all beginners were judged together.


I signed up for the Novice Spinning Wheel competition and Jan signed up for the Intermediate Class competition. I felt a little bad because I won Grand Champion last year at the LA County Fair's Spinning Competition, so a part of me felt I should sign up for a more advanced class. However, it is true that I only started spinning May of 2012, so I am actually a beginner.

The competition was in two twenty-minute parts. For the first part of the competition we were each given an ounce of raw Navajo-Churro fiber, which, from my ganked picture to the right, you can see it is not the most attractive fiber in the world. It is coarse, dirty, lumpy, and has a lot of VM and guard hair in it. We had to prep the fiber then spin it into whatever we think the fiber should be. I thought the fiber needed to be a lofty thick yarn. I first carded the fiber then yanked as much of the guard hair and clumps out as I could, then carded the same fiber twice more. I was too enthusiastic about trying to card the entire sample they gave me, until it dawned on me that I was wasting time and instead I should start spinning it. By that time I already carded up three rolags... sigh. Then I realized that I loaded the fast flyer on my Lendrum spinning wheel already and I didn't want to waste time changing the flyer, so I figured I will just see what comes out of my wheel, rather than change the flyer and not finish the competition. I ended up with a lofty but thin single.

The second part of the competition we were all given different fibers. The Novice Class was given a merino top, the Intermediate Class was given a BFL top, and the Advanced Class was given merino/silk top. I spun mine into a lofty yarn.

After our competition was done we had to wait for the Masters Class to have their competition. I wasn't a master spinning anyway so I didn't join... and since I didn't join I didn't pay attention to what they were doing and I was drop spindling my own Navajo-plied yarn on my new pretty drop spindle.

After the Master's Class was done and the judges were finished, the winners were announced.

The third-place-winner for the Beginner's Class was a person named Casie. I seriously thought maybe they misread my name so I was going to head up there, but then I saw someone heading up so I stayed put. It turned out I won first place for the Beginner's Class. The prizes were: a $25 gift card to RedFish Dyeworks, a blue ribbon (!), and a plaque (!!!). Needless to say I was aesthetic! I never got a plaque for anything before! :) Mr. Sushi said he will hang this on the wall next to my electronic piano for me. I was obviously overly excited by this point, especially considering I just got a plaque (XD), so I stopped paying attention to the winners by this point (sorry people who won in other classes...), but then I heard my name called again! It turned out I ALSO won best in show! Imagine THAT! ME! Haha! I got an awesome spinning wheel lapel pin for best in show. :) It is going to go on my purse so I can show it off to everyone. (I do know Craftydiver also won, and she got a beautiful smelling hand balm as a prize.)

Here's everything I got from the competition. From left to right it is the competition fiber bag, the plaque, brooch, gift certificate, first place ribbon, and the two samples I spun up.

Because I'm so proud of the plaque I am going to post a close up:

Bwahahahaha!!!

Then, in case if anyone's interested, here are my score cards:

After the competition, Craftydiver and I went to put our wheels back into her car, then each got a Polish Sausage Corn Dog for lunch. Sorry, I forgot I'm Asian so I should be taking pictures of food so I didn't take pictures.

Craftydiver then stopped by the Ventura Handweavers and Spinning Guild booth, which they won first place for. The booth was very informative. It had raw fiber samples for people to feel, swatches for people to see how they spin up, finished yarn so people can see, half woven and half spun things on display, looms on display, and wheels on display as well. After that, we heard from a park ranger at the fairground that there were sheep being shorn. Obviously I could not pass up such an opportunity to see sheep being shorn, so I dragged Craftydiver over to see them. Unfortunately the sheering of sheep was over. sigh. However, the fleece were all in bags in one of the kennels. Craftydiver saw one of the bags of fleece with beautiful crimp and good staple length and just had to have it. We had to track down the person who was selling the fleece, who then had to track down a scale, and Craftydiver and I decided to each get half the fleece. There were 4.5 lbs of fiber, so each of us got approximately 2.25 lbs of Cotswold.

Cotswold, from what I read, normally have micron counts between 33 and 40 microns, which is slightly coarser than BFL. It is considered a medium long wool, with beautiful luster and crimp. Some people call it "the poor man's mohair". Cotswold were imported into the US in 1832, and became America's favoritebreed by 1879. It was originally imported as a sheep that is more hardy than Border Leicester. Cotswolds generally produce 12 lbs of fiber per sheep.

Obviously, the 4.5 lbs of fiber was not the entire fleece (thank goodness), but it's still a significant amount. I slightly regret getting the fleece, even though it was quite inexpensive. I do feel I have way too much fiber at home and I really should not be buying fiber, but at the same time I kind of wanted to try working with it. I'm thinking, since the fleece we bought was rather soft, and feels closer to the 33 micron range than the 40 micron range, I will spin it into sports weight woolen fiber after I card it on a drum carder, then I will knit myself a sweater or jacket out of this, complete with hats, and maybe gloves.

For now though, I have the air squeezed out and it is being neglected in my garage. I need to finish spinning the RainCity BFL I got from Convergeance just a few weeks ago, then finish spinning the merino tencel/tencel and mohair/tencel lace, then the SW Australian wool worsted weight fiber, before I scour and card these babies up. Hopefully by Christmas I will get to it and start working on it. Come to think of it, it has good crimp, it is durable, and it is slightly coarse. This should make awesome socks so I need to portion some out for sock yarn. Hrm... I might have to do some calculations to see how I can get a jacket, a hat, a pair of gloves, and... two... pairs of socks out of 2.25 lbs of raw fiber... hrm... maybe I don't have enough fleece... lol.

All in all, it was a very good day for me! I am very excited over it and I seriously cannot believe I won. If I can I will definitely go back next year for the Intermediate Class competition.

I'm participating in the LA County Fair Intermediate Class competition this year too (if I remember to sign up for it.) After the incredible win at LA County Fair last year and this win today, I'm slightly afraid to lose at the LA County Fair. In any case, I am going to stay grounded and remember that I am an inexperienced spinner who has a lot more to learn, so I should just go, have fun, and enjoy the competition (and the free ticket into the fair and the free parking.)