Greencastle!!!

I spent Saturday at The Fiber Event in Greencastle, IN. This was my very first fiber event where I didn't buy ANY yarn! Can you imagine a more deadly sin? But spinning has completely risen to the forefront of my obsession. On the 3-hour drive home, all I could think about was getting back in front of my wheel (she really needs a name, by the way) and letting the fiber slip through my fingers and twist into its new yarn-y incarnation.

I had an awesome day with Jess, who had a pretty wonderful time herself -- she went home with a beautiful Jensen production wheel, named Hazel. She told me I had to either talk her out of it or into buying it, and I told her it would certainly fit nicely into the back of my car. I'm not so good at talking people OUT of buying things, you see. And neither is Jess, by the way. I kept telling her to make sure I didn't buy anything else, and she replied by promptly showing me something else wonderful to buy.

I bought a LOT of multi-colored roving, because I love to see how the colors spin up together. Jess and I picked up our Corriedale x Romney fleece, which came from Lola at Praire Winds Farm and had been processed for us by Wooly Knob Fiber Mill. And I bought a whole fleece! It's from the lovely Alfreda, a Cormo x Border Leicester, almost 5 lbs. after some skirting. I'm going to try to wash and comb it myself...we'll see how far I get with that. But this is the real deal, a sheepy-smelly bag of fleece, freshly sheared off its previous owner.

We stopped at Stitches & Scones on the way home (braving snow and sleet and rain). What a cute store! That's where I redeemed myself, by buying some lucious Malabrigo. I don't know what I'm going to make with it, but once I touched it I couldn't leave without it. I also picked up some Fleece Artist merino roving -- as if I hadn't bought enough fiber earlier in the day.

In spinning class, our instructor, Pat, showed us how to wash a fleece. She gave us some raw fleece to take home and wash before the next class, where we are going to comb it. I washed mine last night, and took lots of pics of the process. I'm going to post a little tutorial with pictures on how to wash a fleece in the next few days.