A Maker’s Guide to Rosemont: Navigating the 2026 Fiber+Fabric Craft Festival & h+h americas
Inside the 2026 Rosemont Fiber Festivals: A Local Yarn Shop Owner's Guide to Fiber+Fabric and h+h americas
Two back-to-back events. Tens of thousands of makers. One Park Ridge studio just ten minutes away. Here's my advice for walking that convention floor — and.
When are the 2026 Rosemont fiber arts festivals?
The Fiber+Fabric Craft Festival, the public-facing show for hobbyists and makers, runs May 1–3, 2026. The h+h americas trade show, restricted to industry buyers, follows on May 6–8, 2026. Both take place at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 N River Rd, Rosemont, IL — minutes from Chicago O'Hare. For attendees who want a quieter local yarn shop within ten minutes of the venue, AriYARN Shop and Studio at 153 N Northwest Hwy in Park Ridge serves as a community sanctuary, classroom, and recovery room throughout the week.
In this guide
For two weeks this May, the Midwest is the busiest place in North American fiber arts. The Fiber+Fabric Craft Festival kicks off on May 1, and four days after the public show wraps, h+h americas takes the same convention floor and turns it into the largest needlearts trade show on the continent. Two audiences, one venue, one week of recovery in between.
I run a yarn shop ten minutes from the doors. Every May, I know people fly into O'Hare on a Tuesday night, hit the festival running on Wednesday morning, and by Friday afternoon, they're ready for a foot massage and a cocktail!
The Fiber+Fabric Craft Festival floor (May 1–3)
Fiber+Fabric Craft Festival is the consumer show. If you knit, crochet, weave, spin, quilt, embroider, or just like the smell of wool, this is where you buy a weekend pass and lose yourself for three days. If this show is like other yarn shows I've attended, the floor will be loud in the good way — a hum of treadle wheels, hand sellers calling out colorway names, and the unmistakable rustle of paper bags being filled too quickly.
What you can expect to see at the festival:
- Experiential Zones. These are the hands-on tables, not the lecture-style classes. You sit down, you try Tunisian crochet, beaded knitting, or wet felting for fifteen minutes, and you leave with a swatch and an opinion. Mini Labs are usually free with admission; full classes require pre-registration and sell out fast.
- The Marketplace. The reason most people fly in. Independent dyers from across the country bring small-batch, festival-exclusive colorways you won't see in any retail catalog. Expect Merino, BFL, silk blends, and breed-specific wools dyed in volumes that can't survive wholesale distribution. The companies you know and love will also be there to showcase their newest tools and lines
- Workshops and Demos. Always worth the detour, especially if you've been on your feet for four hours and need to look at something that isn't a price tag. There will be something for everyone, regardless of your skill level.
- Get inspired. Meet new and well-known designers, ask for advice, and connect with other makers.
Festival survival strategy: my advice for not burning out
The Donald E. Stephens Convention Center is 840,000 square feet. That's a lot of concrete to walk on while carrying a growing pile of wool. The first time I attended, I wish I had come in with a better plan. Since then, I've put together a short list of recommendations for any yarn festival first-timer.
- Know your sweater quantity before you arrive. Pull up your Ravelry queue, calculate the yardage for any garment on your list, and add 10% to ensure you won't be playing yarn chicken with that cardigan.
- Scope out the exhibitors before you go. Look at the list of vendors and the floor plan to navigate the festival strategically.
- Have a budget. You're going to want to buy everything. It is smart to set aside a budget for the show and even dedicate a certain amount for each vendor you just know you will want to visit. But you will also want to have some extra spending money for those "I didn't know I needed" items that will be irresistible when you're there.
- Wear the shoes you'd hike in. Not the cute ones. Refillable water bottle, a project bag with structured handles (we like the Baggu totes we carry at AriYARN — they distribute weight better than a flat tote), and a small snack. Convention center food lines are real, and the Donald E. Stevens Convention Center severely lacks options.
- Take a break. Your head will be spinning with excitement, and you'll want to see everything at once. You will quickly burn out if you take that approach. Instead, break up the day by taking advantage of the various lounges around the convention center, chatting with other makers, stitching for a little while, or trading ideas and new discoveries with other attendees before getting back on your feet.
- Plan a Sunday afternoon off-floor. Don't fly out Sunday night. The festival is exhausting, and the best yarn purchases of the weekend are the ones you make on Sunday morning when half the crowd is gone, and the dyers have time to talk to you.
What we actually do at h+h americas (May 6–8)
The mood shifts hard on Wednesday. The public crowds are gone, the booths are bigger, and the show floor is filled with people wearing badges that say "buyer," "designer," or "wholesale." This is h+h americas: business-to-business, qualified attendees only, and the place where the next year of your local yarn shop's inventory is decided.
Customers ask me what we do in there. The honest answer: we shop carefully, and we listen.
- We meet the people behind the brands. Many of our shelves carry yarn from Berroco, Madelinetosh, and Pascuali. h+h is where we sit across from their reps, discover new releases, feel the quality of the yarn, hear about their sourcing, and decide whether to keep them on the shelves. A line stays at AriYARN only if it's a natural fiber and yarn I would want to use myself.
- We stress-test new tools. Hand fatigue is the most common complaint I hear in the studio. h+h is where I can check out the latest ChiaoGoo Quads interchangeable needles or feel the grip on the new Clover hooks before they ship to my shelves. If something doesn't feel right in a few minutes at a trade show booth, it definitely won't feel right in twenty hours of a sweater body.
- We attend the masterclasses. The trade show runs a parallel education track most attendees never see — sessions on building brand partnerships, color theory, and strategies for building a great community. This is where I pick up the techniques I bring back into AriYARN.
When the convention center breaks you: a Park Ridge sanctuary
By Saturday afternoon of festival weekend, you might need a peaceful place to sit and knit or crochet, and you can always count on AriYARN to welcome you anytime.
That's by design. AriYARN was built as a community hub for local and visiting fiber artists. Just come for a visit and stay as long as you'd like.
Make AriYARN your home base for the week
AriYARN Shop and Studio is at 153 N Northwest Hwy, Park Ridge, IL 60068. We're a fully cashless local yarn shop and teaching studio about ten minutes by car from the convention center. The space is quiet, the chairs are real, and there's always tea.
- The Sister Ananse Bird Collection. Our exclusive Chicago hand-dyed line, locally produced, is never sold anywhere else. If you want a souvenir from the trip that nobody else flying home will have, this is it.
- Thursday Stitch n' Craft Night. If you're in town for the gap between the festival and the trade show, drop in. No registration, no fee, just regulars and their projects. It's the easiest way to meet local makers rather than just buy from them.
- Project rescue. Bought a complicated lace pattern on impulse? Book a 15-minute drop-in or a private lesson, and we'll help you read the chart, fix the gauge, and figure out whether that 2-skein purchase was actually enough.
Getting around: O'Hare, Rosemont, and the Metra UP-NW line
The geography here is unusually friendly. O'Hare, the convention center, and Park Ridge form a small triangle, and you don't need a rental car to make it work.
From O'Hare to the convention. The CTA Blue Line runs directly from the airport terminal to the Rosemont stop, which is a short walk to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. About 15 minutes, a few dollars, no traffic. If you'd rather ride sharedoor-to-door, it's a 5-minute drive.
From the convention to AriYARN. A 10-minute drive door-to-door. If you're not driving, the Park Ridge stop on the Metra Union Pacific Northwest line is a block from our front door, and the line connects to downtown Chicago at Ogilvie Transportation Center. You can spend the morning at the festival, train into the city for lunch, and end the day in our studio for stitch night.
Driving notes. Convention center parking costs $25 or more per day, and the garages fill up early on Saturday. Downtown Park Ridge has free street parking right outside the shop. If you're already paying for a hotel near the venue, leaving the car at the hotel and Metra-ing in is often the easier call.
The h+h festival and convention in May 2026 will be a wonderful and exciting two weeks. If you're flying in for either show — or both — we'd love to see you. Bring your projects. Bring your questions. Tag your finds with #AriYARNCommunity on Instagram, and we'll cheer you on from the shop.
Browse our May class schedule →
