The Connecticut Sheep, Wool, and Fiber Festival
Last weekend, Lee and I went with the Hat City Scissor Squad gals to the Connecticut Sheep, Wool, and Fiber Festival. It was barnsful of wool of all kinds, all touchable, all amazing, all fascinating. There were people all over the place at spindles and spinning wheels, spinning. Sometimes when Lee sees me knitting, he'll say, "Oh, spinning yarns?" When we saw all these people, I said, "These people are the ones spinning yarns. I just knit with the yarn."
There were animals, too, including two pairs of oxen who gave cart rides. This one was so pleased that Mary was talking to him...
We eventually went on an ox-cart ride (Sarah and Lee decided to wait on the sidelines, but Mary, Michelle and I were ready to kick some little kids out of the way if we didn't get a place on that hay bale. We waited for three rounds to earn those seats!).
This was our view from the cart. I took this with my cell phone.
Here's an alpaca!
Besides being adorable and fascinating, alpacas make some of the softest yarn. I was really pawing some alpaca yarn that I wanted to buy for the Fairly Easy Fair-Isle sweater from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, but I didn't have the book with me to know how much I needed, and I think that sweater calls for worsted weight yarn. The stuff I saw was sport-weight. Besides, I need four colors. The scheme I want to go for is dark brown for the main color and three shades of blue, or two shades of blue and one off-white, for the fair isle. The vendor who had the yummy alpaca yarn had it in brown, but who knows if I'd find the same gauge in the colors? I really want to go to this warehouse yarn store in Northampton. It's called Web's, and it's supposed to be a-maze-ing.
Anyway, that was the parent alpaca. Here are some babies:
Aren't they cute? They made the cutest little sounds, too. Watch this video:
Click here if the effing Photobucket video doesn't work. What am I doing wrong with that thing?
They had been curled up on the ground, but then the ox cart rode by, and they jumped up to watch it pass.
The festival also had sheep dog trainers competing with their dogs. The dogs chased around some sheep and tried to make them run the right way through these things and into that thing and then into the pen. Here's another video:
Again, click if I've failed to embed this video.
For lunch, we ate in the Gold Barn. The flyer claimed that the Gold Barn would serve an assortment of vegetarian fare. That assortment included "veggie wraps." That's all. I'm not a vegetarian, however, so I had lamb stew. I wondered if I was eating the lambs who weren't performing well.
Michelle, Mary, me, and Sarah.
A good time was had at the festival, in my estimation. And Mary and Sarah made off with bagfuls of unspun wool that they're going to dye and spin. They are SO hardcore!
There were animals, too, including two pairs of oxen who gave cart rides. This one was so pleased that Mary was talking to him...
We eventually went on an ox-cart ride (Sarah and Lee decided to wait on the sidelines, but Mary, Michelle and I were ready to kick some little kids out of the way if we didn't get a place on that hay bale. We waited for three rounds to earn those seats!).
This was our view from the cart. I took this with my cell phone.
Here's an alpaca!
Besides being adorable and fascinating, alpacas make some of the softest yarn. I was really pawing some alpaca yarn that I wanted to buy for the Fairly Easy Fair-Isle sweater from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, but I didn't have the book with me to know how much I needed, and I think that sweater calls for worsted weight yarn. The stuff I saw was sport-weight. Besides, I need four colors. The scheme I want to go for is dark brown for the main color and three shades of blue, or two shades of blue and one off-white, for the fair isle. The vendor who had the yummy alpaca yarn had it in brown, but who knows if I'd find the same gauge in the colors? I really want to go to this warehouse yarn store in Northampton. It's called Web's, and it's supposed to be a-maze-ing.
Anyway, that was the parent alpaca. Here are some babies:
Aren't they cute? They made the cutest little sounds, too. Watch this video:
Click here if the effing Photobucket video doesn't work. What am I doing wrong with that thing?
They had been curled up on the ground, but then the ox cart rode by, and they jumped up to watch it pass.
The festival also had sheep dog trainers competing with their dogs. The dogs chased around some sheep and tried to make them run the right way through these things and into that thing and then into the pen. Here's another video:
Again, click if I've failed to embed this video.
For lunch, we ate in the Gold Barn. The flyer claimed that the Gold Barn would serve an assortment of vegetarian fare. That assortment included "veggie wraps." That's all. I'm not a vegetarian, however, so I had lamb stew. I wondered if I was eating the lambs who weren't performing well.
Michelle, Mary, me, and Sarah.
A good time was had at the festival, in my estimation. And Mary and Sarah made off with bagfuls of unspun wool that they're going to dye and spin. They are SO hardcore!