Raw wool spun into yarn, fine cotton braided into delicate lace on Saturday, November 14, 2009 as the Lake Ainslie Ainslie Weaver Guild held its first annual Fibre Festival at the at the Scotsville School of Crafts. The guild teaches and promotes traditional household Cape Breton crafts.

"We want to show people Cape Breton history as practiced at home," said festival organizer Cate Lake-Thompson. "Most traditional crafts — spinning, weaving, carding, even knitting, to some degree — have been largely lost over time. We want to demonstrate how they were done, how they can still be done, as a satisfying pastime. These home-based crafts are as important to our understanding of our background and culture as the foods they ate and the fiddle music they played. After all, someone has to spin and weave the blankets for milling frolics!"

The festival, held at the old Scotsville School, included treadle spinning wheels, carding machines, a bobbin lace pillow, a knitting machine, and a fiber machine manufacturer from PEI.

Belfast Mini Mills, a family-owned business, displayed a wide range of wares: cashmere, qiviut (musk ox hair), wool, alpaca, silk, even bamboo, "poor man’s silk", a fine white yarn reminiscent of silk thread.

The Mini-Mill (www.minimills.net) is a 17 year old manufacturing plant that creates "cottage sized" machinery to handle almost any fiber, from the first washing, through carding and spinning, to winding the finished yarn into skeins. "We sell across North America," said owner Doug Noble. "It's important that we manufacture every thing we sell, so if a customer calls to replace a part, we can have one to them in days."

Belfast Mini-Mills operate in a number of American states, in Equador, and on Ronaldsay Island in Scotland — more than 200 mills worldwide so far. Belfast Mini-Mills displayed their yarns and blends, kits, dyes, and a slide show of their mills in location at many spinning retreats held throughout the Maritime Provinces.

Bellemead Farm's Cate Lake-Thompson demonstrated spinning and Australian locker hooking, an ingenious crocheting that pulls loose wool rovings through an oversized mesh backing, then secures those stitches with yarn. The weave thus becomes a durable thick mat, suitable for chair covers or throw rugs.

Suzanne Craig explained the Italian medieval craft of bobbin lace: eight strands of fine cotton, with a quick twist or braid, were transformed into an edging of curlicues, flowers, and snowflakes.

Modern technology was represented by a knitting machine, operated by Judy Lincoln of Hillsdale Mohair in Judique. Rows of strategically placed holes in the pattern order the knitting pattern of woolen yardage. Hillsdale Mohair also displayed Cheticamp-style rug hooking, and a number of exotic yarns such as silk and mohair.

Fiber enthusiasts from Sydney to Creignish attended; eager knitters clustering around rainbow heaps of yarn. Two pre-schoolers, their parents in tow, each carefully clutched three skeins of yarn to take home. The Lake Ainslie Weavers Guild plans to host another such fibre festival next year. For more information, write to info (at) lakeainslieweaversguild (dot) org.