Fibrefest

When the kids head back to school and the first hint of autumn is on the air, Almonte starts gearing up for its favourite fall festival: Fibrefest! This year’s event — the 22^nd annual celebration of the fibre arts — takes place on the weekend of September 9th and 10th at two locations in town. For the low admission price of $5 per day, visitors will find demonstrations, vendors, and exhibits at both the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum and the Almonte Arena.

Local guilds will demonstrate spinning, knitting, weaving, rug hooking, lacemaking, smocking and quilting. Vendors include spinners, weavers, and fibre artists from across the province, as well as quilt shops and alpaca farms. And at 4pm on September 10, hundreds of felted lambs will be spun in a bingo spinner at the arena, and the owners of the first three lambs to come out of the spinner will win fabulous prizes. Tickets for the spin will be on sale during Fibrefest at the at the arena.

During the two-day festival the Friends of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will offer their popular tea room services featuring homemade goodies, beverages and sandwiches at very reasonable prices. At the museum, explore the permanent history exhibit Fabric of a Small Town, which interprets how a piece of wool becomes a piece of finished cloth and includes industrial machines used throughout the process. Also on display this year is the featured exhibit A Life Inspired, a retrospective of works by William Hodge. Mr. Hodge is a retired teacher from the textile faculty of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. His extraordinary works of beaded portraits and woven tapestries are in permanent collections of institutions across the world