WIFF

Yesterday was a crystal clear early fall day, cool in the wind, but warm enough in the sun--perfect for the Wolfe Island Fibre Fest. A good part of the fun of this event is the fact that I can walk out my front door, take a free ferry ride, and end up in a semi-rural setting in less than half an hour. Here are groups of people waiting to take the ferry as either walk-on passengers or cyclists.

Hint: if you happen to live farther than walking or cycling distance from the terminal, park in downtown Kingston and go as a walk-on passenger rather than risk sitting for an hour or more in the vehicle line. This is where you don't want to be. Not all these cars made it onto the ferry, so they ended up waiting another hour for the next crossing.

We enjoyed the view of the city from the water. The domed building is the City Hall.

 At 10:30 a.m. the lake was fairly calm, the water still a little glassy.

Wolfe Island has not been gentrified. It's a little shabby looking, but that's part of its charm. The low-key nature of everything there, including Fibre Fest is actually rather appealing. The Festival was spread out between several venues, all walking distance from the ferry and from each other. I visited the vendors set up in the town hall, where I purchased some pretty fingering weight alpaca hand-dyed in a soft grape colour from Silver Cloud Alpacas.
Hannah and her mother, Sara, were admiring the alpaca fleece and spun yarn too.

There were quite a few Americans at the Festival, who had come over to the Island from the U.S. on the Cape Vincent Ferry. Most vendors were taking US$$ at par.
After checking out everything at the Town Hall, I wandered down the main street, where some work was being done on this quaint and rather typical little 19thC cottage.

I arrived at Purlin J's Roving Yarn Co., set up in her classic fire truck,

and discovered that Briggs and Little has a new product-- "Lite and Fancy" handpainted soft spun similar in weight to their sport weight and also a 1-ply. It doesn't seem to be listed yet on their website. I bought a couple of skeins (240 yds each) to play with.
Then it was up the hill, past these glorious sunflowers,

to the United Church hall,






where more vendors had their goods displayed. At Anwyn Yarns, I bought some BFL sock yarn and Meriel, the owner, tried on my Harriet's Jacket,

 

 

which reminds me that I promised to e-mail her a free pdf of the pattern.









After a late brunch at the Wolfe Island Grill,

we (by then Bill had joined me) headed back onto the Ferry. On the return crossing, the wind had picked up and the lake was quite choppy.

 

That's Fort Henry in the background. We had a good view of RMC (the Royal Military College)  and one of Kingston's four martello towers as we neared the harbour.

I struck up a conversation with Nicole, who had been to the Island to meet up with friends for some paddling. See her two canoe paddles?

The conversation started over her gorgeous handknitted sweater, quite old and knitted by her mum. Unfortunately, she hadn't managed to link up with the friends, but she seemed to be enjoying the day anyway.
The bridge was up across the causeway to let boats through into the Cataraqui River.

On the walk home, I stopped at the City Market and bought a basket of apples for applesauce. All in all, a fantastically fun day.