more sheep and yarn

Yesterday afternoon we had a fun few hours at the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool Festival. Once again my daughter had a wonderful time looking at and petting sheep (plus a few friendly sheepdog puppies).

She really didn't want to leave, and when she woke up from napping in the car on the way home was ready to turn around and drive back. I said maybe one day we'll live somewhere that we can keep sheep to keep our grass down and she can be in charge of taking care of them, she liked this idea very much! Maybe she'll end up on a farm sometime in her future like her uncle and other antecedents.
Once again I was restrained and came away with just one skein of yarn (I almost bought nothing but this caught my eye after my husband encouraged my mother and I to wander the sales tables which was just asking for trouble). It's 8oz of this fingering weight 65% superwash merino, 35% bamboo in Smoky Plum from Sliver Moon Farm. I also mentioned to my husband that at some point in the future a spinning wheel would be a good gift for me and he picked up the card of a man right in Vermont who makes cute little spinning wheels that fold up and fit in a tote bag so one day...

Really I have enough new yarn stash now to keep me busy for a long time because we did also make it to the WEBS tent sale last weekend. Here's a basket with a taste of my purchases; it's nice to shop with another knitter except for the way you end up enabling each other to spend much more than you should or otherwise would (or perhaps that's one of the nice things). I'm working on a post with the details of my yarn purchases and my ideas of what to make with them in an attempt to focus myself and get to knitting.

Before casting on anything new though I've promised myself to finish up a couple of projects I've been working on for my daughter. They've both been mostly done for a while now so it's just a question of sitting down and getting on with it. I used some of Sunday's driving time to work on the borders for the Cowgirl Butterfly Astronaut Vest. I was taking a new wip photo (for the ravelry project page) this afternoon and when my daughter came over to see what I was doing I had her put it on. Clearly it needs some blocking, buttons and ends sewing in; I have knitted the neckline since the photo was taken.

Livestock and Fiber

So much for back into the blogging thing soon. Ah well, such is life I suppose. Spring, (and also having more of a delve into the Twitter universe perhaps - I added a twitter feed in the sidebar) is making me want to try again again though so I thought I'd try and get a start on that while my daughter is focused on her Grannie (who is visiting from England for a few weeks).

I spotted on ravelry that the NH Sheep and Wool festival happens on Mothers Day weekend so I mentioned it to my husband and he said lets go, so we did! We got our usual ridiculously late start, and had a detour on the way due to a bridge that was closed but not signposted well (we saw the detour signposts AFTER the detour started having driven all the way to the bridge and back...). We got there eventually if only for the last few hours of Saturday afternoon. All my daughter wanted to do was look at animals (and pet them if at all possible) so we spent a lot of time walking around the sheep barns until we could drag her away to get some late lunch! We also watched some of the sheepdog demo (having timed things badly enough to the actual sheepdog trials).

When we left I felt slightly as though I'd just skimmed the tip of the iceberg in terms of looking at the actual fiber offerings. I did manage to come away with a Mother's Day present I appreciate more than flowers or chocolates:

Pretty yarn (from Maple Creek Farm - rav link as their website seems to have gone away) and time with my family doing something fun.

I also bought some roving from Ewe & I Farm. My mum got me a drop spindle a few years back which I never got round to using so I thought it's about time to give it a go. It's so long since I've used one though, need to check out some of the helpful videos online methinks.

Next on my craftiness list is going through my ravelry queue and finding a project for that pretty yarn, and also reordering and making notes of yarn requirements for projects because hopefully we shall enhance my mother's visit by taking in the WEBS tent sale this weekend. We may also try and make a visit to the MA sheep and wool festival the weekend after since my mum will still be here, and my husband and daughter had a good enough time in NH to want to do it again. Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting...