Calling all crocheters, spinners, knitters, and felters: spend Worldwide Knit in Public Day surrounded by fellow fibre art enthusiasts while stocking up on new merino wools, stunning hand-dyed yarns, one-of-a-kind handbags, and creative ideas to inspire you through the summer.
Returning for the fifth year with more than 90 vendors, the Kawartha Yarn and Fibre Festival will be held at the Fenelon Falls Community Centre from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 8th. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The festival was created by mother-and-daughter fibre artists Christi and Kate Norris along with Lyn Gemmell of the Elliot Lake dye studio Shelridge Yarns Inc. After travelling great distances to attend fibre festivals, the trio decided to bring one closer to home to make it more accessible to local small businesses.
“Everyone was travelling a really long way to get to these events and instead we brought this event back to where my mom lives in the town I grew up in,” says Kate, who spends most of her spare time knitting, though also explores crocheting, embroidery, and other textile arts.
“It’s an event for businesses for which the Toronto shows might be a bit of a reach — both in distance and financially — but also so that we’re bringing those tourists into Fenelon Falls to share the town we love with them.”
The vendors are all small businesses, many of which are woman-led and return year after year, from across Ontario as far as Thunder Bay and Alberta. Visitors can expect to find hand-dyed yarns, wools, patterns, rug hooks, handmade clothing and accessories, fabrics, new and used books of various techniques, and other supplies. When it comes to fibre arts, each vendor has something unique to offer.
“Dying yarn is like a thumbprint,” says Kate. “Everyone has a very slightly different variation, a very slightly different style, or a slightly different skillset, which can produce wildly different results in your finished products.”
The festival will see a mix of full vendor booths and the “mini-market” spaces suitable for those businesses that only require a limited amount of space.
“Vendors who are smaller businesses and can’t fill a full booth yet or maybe don’t want to, or aren’t sure about making the full investment, have a smaller space available for them to test the waters and see if this show is a good fit for them,” Kate explains. “It allows small vendors to connect with each other and build business relationships as the day goes on.”
The festival also includes a series of classes, with limited space available.
Canadian fibre artist Wendo VanEssen, who is also an animator (The Land Before Time, FernGully: The Last Rainforest), will host two always-popular classes on needle felting the day before and the day of the festival. On Friday (June 7) at 6 p.m., participants will use learned techniques to craft a felted cottage country image of a Jack Pine, while a class on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. will explore how to apply felting on a tote bag.
“It’s a 90-minute class that is super accessible,” says Kate. “Wendo is a fantastic teacher and you walk away with not just a cool tote bag that you’ve worked on, but also a new skill that you can apply and a new way to approach arts.”
Additionally, knitwear designer and hand dyer Kim McBrien Evans will lead two classes on Saturday: one at 11:30 a.m. on confidently combining colours for various projects, and one at 1 p.m. on five tips for knitting sweaters for the body you have rather than the one you want.
“It can be incredibly heartbreaking to put in hours of labour, and a significant amount of money into the product that you’re using, to knit a sweater for yourself or someone you love and it doesn’t fit right,” says Kate. “Kim is working incredibly hard to change the way that people address sweater fit issues to make sure you can knit a sweater that fits your body better.”
Others who are new to the world of fibre arts or are wanting to expand their knowledge can learn by connecting with the vendors and other visitors.
“All our vendors are very happy to teach and learn,” Kate points out. “It’s incredibly common to see someone holding a drop spindle for the first time or touching yarn and saying ‘I don’t know what I would make with this’ or ‘I love this colour, but I have no idea what I would do with it’, and someone around the corner — whether it’s a vendor or another knitter — will say ‘I have this idea,’ or ‘Let me help you’. Lots of people are ready to help you find the skill that is right for you.”
As with every year’s festival, Kate is excited to see the map of Ontario where vendors pinpoint where they are coming from, showing just how far some of them drove to share their products and knowledge with the Kawarthas.
“The first year we did it, we were shocked to see how much of Ontario was involved — people were from everywhere,” she says. “We really thought that the draw would be much smaller and it would be fairly tight to the Kawarthas, but it’s not.”
Kate notes that looking at the map is a reminder of just how much some of the businesses rely on vendor markets, noting the “really positive” impact that events like Kawartha Yarn and Fibre Festival can have on small businesses.
“Everyone’s so supportive of everyone — I cannot recommend joining the yarn community enough,” she says. “Many of our vendors are repeat vendors every year, and there are people we see year after year after year. It’s great and it feels like coming home. It’s my favorite weekend of the year, easily.”
While advance ticket sales and registration for classes are now closed, tickets will be available at the door for $10. For a full list of vendors, visit www.kyaff.ca. For updates, follow the Kawartha Yarn and Fibre Festival on Facebook and Instagram.
