Good to Be Baaaaaaaaaaaad!

Sheep and Wool! Sheep and Wool! Jess, the Guru and I woke up early to a gorgeous, sun-shiny, cloudless day, ready to head to the MD Sheep & Wool Festival in West Friendship, MD. While I think the event was a little smaller than Rhinebeck, we were sufficiently overwhelmed and thoroughly saturated by our exposure to fiber today. We spent 6-1/2 hours perusing the various barns and stalls full of fleece, roving, yarn, finished goods, and all the tools and implements that you could ever dream of needing for any purpose related to fiber.

We first headed to Tess' Designer Yarns, where Jess wanted to buy some superwash sock yarn for her new friend Jessica. We immediately ran into Stephanie & Christy, our SnB friends. We all bought superwash sock yarn, it's the bright green stuff in the pic. Then we wandered around many, many stalls and barns -- most of which were dedicated to sheep and goat fibers, with not a few angora bunnies. This woman was plucking and spinning right from the bunny on her lap!

We stopped by the knit blogger meet-up, but didn't really recognize anyone except Jess's friend Sandra. And no one recognized us, either. so we moved on to more yarn-buying.

The fest was a bit short on alpacas, but here is a pic of a suri and a huacaya that were in attendance. I think the MI Fiber Fest in August will have more alpacas since the event title isn't soley focused on sheep. Llamas, another (much larger!) member of the camelid family, were also at the fest -- their fleece is pretty soft, but they are so much bigger than their cousins! I'll think I'll keep my future fantasy fiber farm filled with alpacas. We really got to see a lot of different yarn, and to buy some, too. I asked Dave what he thought of my new stash and he replied, "It seems a bit excessive." Oh well, I need something to do in Indiana.

So just a run-down of what all of this new stash stuffing is for:

- Grey wool from Mountain Shepherdess for the Rogue Hoodie (Jess & the Guru also bought some wool to do a knit-along on this project)
- Undyed cotton from The Spinners Hill Shop for a possible halter top of undetermined pattern - maybe I'll even try dying this, with Jess's help, although she said she hasn't tried dying plant fibers yet and it sounds kind of messy and chemically -- this might just be happy staying undyed
- Organic cotton (green, natural color) from Delly's Delights, for another possible halter/tank top/summer top, also of as yet undetermined pattern (this is the vendor I bought the yarn from at Rhinebeck that became Greta)! They said they get their cotton yarn is from Henry's Attic.
- Organic cotton from Econit for the Baby Bolero
- Bright green and blue tencel/wool blend from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. She had some fabulous 100% alpaca that I wanted to buy, but there wasn't enough for a sweater or anything like that. I may email them because the prices were really good.
- Purple/green and plain green skeins of superwash sock yarn from Tess' Designer Yarns - to be made into socks or baby clothing
- Light and dark grey wool from Spinning Flock Farm that was SUPER cheap ($1.75 a skein -- the Guru went back and bought out the sale basket) - for socks for Dave

Here are Jess' and the Guru's stashes: