Southern Highlands Crafts Fair and the Kayak's Next Stop

Yesterday I attended the Southern Highlands Crafts Fair, held twice a year in Asheville NC in July and October.  It was everything you could want to see, except knitting and yarn :( There was one booth with a spinner, and several lovely weaving booths, but other than that, it was wood, and pottery, metal, glass and other beautiful things. Well worth going for the variety and quality of the beautiful crafts.  Highly recommended.  Some of my favorites below:

Bamboo hand loomed shawls and clothing.  Exquisite

Cool pottery

A whole booth full of the most whimsical and useful wooden utensils!!  

Who doesn't need a hand carved wooden zinc, as we call them in New Orleens???

Copper

Wavy glass

I met a weaver, Kathrin Weber, who hand dyes warp threads in her Blazing Shuttle Warp of the Month Club.  She sells hand painted warps to weavers who then use them as they wish.  The idea has taken off to the point where Kathrin, who has been weaving for 33 years, is now basically full time hand painting the warp yarns.  She is dynamite, and her work is exquisite, and since I know I haven't done her justice, visit her beautiful website, Blazing Shuttles.

Kathrin with her work and hand dyed yarn

I also visited Home Crafts, a cool store where not only do they have a wide variety of yarn for sale, and a great selection of needles, shuttles, and notions, but they also sell the finished work of knitters and other fiber artists.  Two walls of felted hats!  Go see them if you are in Asheville.

Now the kayak wants to get wet.

Headed out today for the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I've been making my way up north and will camp tonight and probably the next couple of nights at the Peaks of Otter Campground in Virginia, and see how that goes.  No internet, I'm sure, so I won't be posting for a few days.  Keep cool. Ha.