What a treat! A whole week of fibre-related workshops, cute and gentle fibre animals, and good ol’ prairie hospitality. That’s Fibre Week in Olds, Alberta.

This event is held each summer at Olds College, an institution with a long history of providing agricultural education. In the summers it hosts events of all sorts. During Fibre Week this year the college also welcomed a huge contingent from Mexico, learning about farming, but mostly improving their English – si, por supuesto.

Fibre Week Workshops are divided into 2 categories: those that involve only fibre, and those that involve the fibre-bearing animals. In the Fibre category you can take workshops on knitting, spinning (Fibre Week’s mainstay, providing multiple levels of the certificate-awarding Master Spinner Program), felting, weaving, dyeing, etc.; in the Animal category there are workshops on shearing animals and grading fleeces.

Threaded in and around the workshops are delightful social events including a barbecue, a casual fashion show and a potluck dinner (bring something from the grocery store deli or the take-out restaurant across the street).

While I was there I took a creativity workshop and a creative knitting workshop. Both were great fun and hugely inspiring. Outside of class time I met lots of wonderful and creative people and learned a little bit about all sorts of things. Oh, and of course there was a fabulous merchant area.

Will I attend Fibre Week 2007? I sure hope so! How will I fit it in with the Wild Fibres Conference in Red Deer??? So much fibre, so little time…

Fibre Week in Olds Alberta July 1 to 7, 2006
Originally published in the West Coast Knitters’ News Volume 8 Issue 5 September 2006

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