Thursday, June 1, 2006

Memorial Day Weekend, Part II

Let's try for those pictures again, shall we? (Warning: Picture heavy post. May take time to load, but it's totally worth it.)

Here's my plan, by the way. Today I shall give you the photos of the animals and the spoils from the fiber festival. My next post will give you the events of Monday the 29th, and the post after that will give you my reflections on the weekend, so you don't think it was all frivolous and that I didn't learn anything.

We saw sheep.

We saw more sheep. (It was a sheep and fiber show, remember?)

We could have eaten sheep, too, had we not all decided that was a baa-d idea.

We saw alpacas. I especially liked this one because he was freshly shorn and looked like he had an afro.

This alpaca and his buddies were maybe about 5 feet tall or a little taller.

This guy was about 6'5", had a tent to himself, and was quite obviously enjoying his lunch. I love this picture.

Then we saw the bunnies. Cute, cute bunnies. I could have bought one for $25. I didn't think the kids would approve.

Here's Nicole and Kimmie, looking incredibly happy to be at a sheep and fiber show.

Here's a picture of me that Nicole took in one of the vendor booths. Could I look any crankier? I promise I wasn't that cranky.

One of the vendors had made these beautiful dolls. They are handmade except for the little stuffed sheep (Hi, Meekins!). Look at the knitting in the basket! They were so beautiful. I would have bought one but they were $75 a piece. The lady was kind enough to allow me to photograph a few of them. This was my favorite. If you want to know her contact information, leave a note in the comments.

Now for the spoils/loot/booty/treasure/purchases!

This was my first purchase. It's a Blue Faced Leicester wool roving, ready for spinning. I had bought a drop spindle last November or December when I bought another one for Brenda for Christmas, but the roving that came with it was rather uninspiring. I thought that if I had something inspiring, that I might actually try the spindle. These bright, bright greens are definitely inspiring. I can't wait to try it now.

This was a purchase I thought about ALL day. It's Wildfoote brand sock yarn in the Elderberry colorway. I bought two skeins of it. This picture shows the colors best. It's almost a laceweight yarn, it's so fine. Hmm, that might give me some ideas (since to make it into socks would likely take some US0s).

Here's some more sock yarn, only this is from Fleece Artist, in shades of bright red. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait to find the perfect pattern for it. I've not used Fleece Artist before, but I've read a lot about it on other blogs and have wanted to try it.

I bought some casein knitting needles as well. Go check out the website for more information. They're from Australia and made of some sort of dairy product. I'll give my review of them after I've used them for something. I also got some handmade soap in a Bay Lime scent. It smells good and it made all the yarn in the bag smell good, too.

My favorite purchase of the day has to be my 100% angora bunny wool. It's SO soft, and so nice, and SO soft, and so wonderful. I'm planning on a lace scarf with it. Luxury defined.

I also bought some kool-aid dyed green wool, but apparently I forgot to take a picture of it. Shame on me.

Oh! And Saturday night at my mom's house, I finished my entrelac bag, shown here with Kimmie's flip flops. At this point it sort of looked like clown pants with green suspenders. I had to keep Kimmie from trying it on. Felted pictures tomorrow!



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On the way to Wooster we met a lot of bugs head-on during the last 25 minutes of the trip. I tried to use the windshield washer fluid to get some of them off, but it was a rather futile attempt. This little anecdote reminds me of my dad because he always called the windshield washer fluid "puppy pee". If you think about it, it makes sense.

3 comments:

Joy said...

I know what casein is! Elli's formula is supposed to be easier to digest because it's made from casein. I'm not sure what most formulas are made from, but apparently it's part of milk. I had no idea it could come in solid form, let alone in knitting needles. Fascinating.

Kimmie said...

So what is USO? I assume you are not referring to entertaining the troops - but maybe you are! Entertain them with your fabulous knitting skills!

Also - I want to put a disclaimer on about my flip flops in the bag picture. That was after an entire day of cavorting with barnyard animals and walking on dirt - so they are a little nasty looking.

Finally - looking at the bag picture still makes me want to put it on as clown pants. Maybe I should make some entrelac clown pants for halloween......

Brenda said...

Look at all that booty! It's better than pirate booty!

The bag looks awesome! I can't wait to see the felted pictures!

I love the knitted doll. I'm going to make one.