Carolina FiberFest 2026: A Needle Felter's Full Recap (Bunnies, Stickers, and All)

I went to Carolina FiberFest with a "budget," a plan, and a promise that I wouldn't bring home an angora bunny. I left only with angora rabbit fiber, a bookmark loom, too many stickers, and the contact info of a needle felter from Peachland, NC who makes a wax fluffing tool I didn't know I needed. Here's everything worth knowing.

What Is Carolina FiberFest?

If you've never been, Carolina FiberFest is a fiber arts festival that brings together spinners, dyers, weavers, knitters, crocheters, needle felters, tufting artists, knitting machinists, mill owners, farmers, and tool makers all under one (very large) roof at the North Carolina fairgrounds. The vibe is friendly and the most lowkey of any event I’ve ever attended. This is not QuiltCon, not your typical millennial instagrammable moment, or overstimulating shopping marathon. Nobody is posing for likes, and some people don’t even have a website. People are here because they love fiber and they want to talk to you about it for forty five minutes, and honestly? I loved it.

The Color. Damn, the colors were amazing.

If you're a fiber person, you already know that indie dyers are doing something kind of wild in the best possible way. The colorways at this festival were genuinely stunning. Deep autumnal blends, earthy rustic tones, jewel-bright combinations, glow-in-dark party vibes, and next level maximalism that felt like joy in skein form, and then the natural undyed fibers doing their quiet, beautiful thing alongside all of it.

My absolute favorite booth for color was Spin Up Girl out of Greensboro, NC (spinupgirl.com). Crystal's colorways are vibrant and joyful in a way that makes you feel like the world isn't actually on fire, which is a skill and a service. She was also spinning live at her booth wearing the cutest bird's nest headband I've ever seen, a little felted nest made from brown and beige roving with tiny felted eggs tucked inside. I almost stole it. 

Other dyers I loved: Nickel Madigan (nickelmadigan.com) for ice-dyed handspun that looks like fantasy world candy, Kris Jenkins (www.alkandme.com) who clearly understands the science behind color, and Karen Poetzinger (karenpoetzinger.com), a rug hooking artist and hand dyer out of Chapel Hill, NC whose color sense is earthy and rich and deeply satisfying. It was like being at the paint aisle at Lowe’s or browsing Pantone colors in wool fabric form. 

The Needle Felting Booth That Stole My Heart

Okay. Obviously I have to talk about O'Shea's Craic N Crafts (https://osheascnc.myshopify.com/), because Sheena O'Shea from Peachland, NC is doing things in the needle felting world that made me want to sit down on the floor and have a moment.

Her booth had felted applique patches of fuzzy sheep you can iron directly onto fabric, which is brilliant. She also makes a tool called the Fluff'r, a wax tool that holds three reverse needles to maximize fluff with less effort, and I am genuinely still thinking about how genius it is. Her artwork - an octopus, a dragon, sheep x1000, and kid-sized felted giraffe and kitty slippers. It was all so whimsical and technically impressive.

I also had to snag the "Just the Tip" sticker with a needle felting needle and little hearts, and "The Tortured Felters Department" one because, Taylor Swift, duh.

Things I Actually Bought

Since we're being honest: I went for my mom as much as for myself. She's been sick and asked me to pick up some yarn for her spring knitting projects. She's tan with olive undertones who loves earthy and subtle color. I am pale and obsessed with jewel tones and black. I was a bit nervous about it.

At Haynes House Yarns and Briar Patch Fibre Co were genuinely so helpful navigating that, giving expert-level guidance on what would work for both of our coloring without me having to explain undertones from scratch. That kind of knowledge is exactly why you shop indie.

I also picked up:

• White angora rabbit fiber to experiment with in needle felting (will it work as well as wool? Who knows, but I’ll keep you posted)

• A laser cut bookmark loom from Cottontail Farm with a tiny pink, green, and orange mini skein for my daughter

• Stickers from Camp Stitchwood, including a frog queen wearing a crown and holding a ball of yarn 

• A tiny pink bunny pencil topper from a fiber artist whose booth I also ended up doing light IT support for (more on that in a second)

Cottontail Farm also had a whole booth of wool tweed bags, classic silhouettes updated with leather and colorful canvas trims, that were genuinely beautiful if you're into that aesthetic.

The Bunnies. The Giant Angora Bunnies.

There were angora bunnies there and I need to tell you about them. I watched a mom and her daughter buy a blue angora bunny, eight months old, $125, and it hadn't even had its first shave yet. The breeder has forty bunnies at home in a barn (wtf). There was also an albino one named Isaac who was enormous despite being under a year old. 

A Thing I Want to Say About Vendors and Payment Tech

This is a minor rant and also a genuine observation: several vendors at this festival were struggling with their point of sale setups. I ended up restarting one artist's phone and helping her set up tap to pay so she could actually check out her customers. It was fine, I was happy to do it, but it was also a little heartbreaking to watch incredibly talented “chronically offline” people lose sales because Shopify and Square POS aren't exactly intuitive when you're also trying to run a booth and talk to forty people about fiber unless you’re tech savvy. 

The community response was genuinely beautiful though. I watched multiple booth neighbors offer to run card payments for vendors who couldn't, just so nobody lost a sale. That's the fiber community in a nutshell: chaotic, generous, and always holding each other up.

If anyone organizes fiber festivals and is reading this: a roving IT person for vendor tech support would be a genuinely great use of volunteer time. Seriously, these artists are too busy spinning or knitting to be on top of the latest POS software, y’all. 

Tips If You're Going Next Year

A few things I'd do differently and a few things I'd do again:

• Bring a tote and skip the booth bags at checkout. That way you have a limit on what you can actually carry. 

• Walk the whole floor once before buying anything, your impulse purchases will thank you. 

• Patience. Some artists and fiber processors aren't the best with the check out process. So just chill, okay?
  
  

• Photograph your favorite products alongside the business card so you can find them again for holiday and birthday wishlists. 

• Ask vendors directly if they're local to the Carolinas if that matters to you, since there's no signage for it but people love to tell you. 

• And if there are live animals outside, which there were (a yak, sheep, alpacas, and the aforementioned bunnies), the signage directing you to them needs work. I almost missed the alpacas singing some sort of whistle song.

Also, the used equipment section felt overpriced to me, for what it's worth. So shop accordingly.

Other North Carolina Fiber Artists Worth Following

Beyond the vendors I've already mentioned, a few others that stuck with me:

• Alk & Me (alkandme.com) is a hand spinner, weaver, and indie dyer with a genuinely great eye for color.
• Bridget Prikker (knitting_owls@yahoo.com) makes the silliest and cutest knitted little trinkets I have ever encountered in my life. She doesn’t have a website, but her bunnies, chickens, and monsters were so adorable. 
• Two Dachshund Farm had some lovely trinkets from Peru and also sounds like an excellent day trip destination.

Upcoming NC Fiber Festivals in 2026

If Carolina FiberFest got you going, here's what's on the calendar for North Carolina fiber festivals for the rest of 2026:

Blue Ridge Fiber Fest June 5 and 6 | Higgins Fairgrounds, Sparta, NC blueridgefiberfest.com

Southern Comforts Fiber Market Friday August 7 and Saturday August 8 | 10am to 5pm | Charlotte, NC southerncomfortsfibermarket.com

NC Yarn Tour All of July | Statewide ncyarntour.com

SAFF: Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair October 23 to 25 | WNC Agricultural Center, Asheville, NC Friday and Saturday 9am to 5pm, Sunday 9am to 4pm saffsite.org

That’s it! So see you at the next one. I'll be the one with a single tote bag, buying up all of the stickers and petting the bunnies.