No really. I do. Who could ask for better friends than people who would leave their house before dawn, freeze their little bippies off, hang around all day, talk to the public and give free spinning lessons and go home covered in dirt at the end of it all for free? Certainly not me because that’s what happened this weekend!

The Garden State Sheep Breeders festival was definitely a success in my book and none of it could have happened without the amazing assistance of Kim, Sharon, Sairy, Cheeky, Kristy and HWJF.

HWJF and I packed everything up on Friday night and arrived with two cars at the festival around 7:15am Saturday morning. The sun was just up and holy cow was it COLD. We set to work setting things up and were quickly joined by Sharon, Kim and Cheeky. Many hands definitely make light work and before I knew it we were set up and ready for business. HWJF was nice enough to take some pictures for me and it was a good thing he did or I might not have any at all!

We somehow didn’t manage to get Cheeky in the shot.

I got many complements on the display throughout the course of the festival which I took as a major complement considering the only thing I purchased to create my display was two C clamps and those were bought with a gift card! Hooray for found objects and borrowing! It was nice to hear the ooohs and ahhhs over the colors and the fibers. That’s unfortunately something you just don’t get with an online shop.

If you want some even better shots of the festival, head on over to Deb’s post. She got some great pics which include her Mom wearing one of my rovings in a “no spinning necessary” way that I just loved!!

Eklectica’s spindles were a huge seller throughout the weekend. I was so happy to be able to offer them for sale in my booth. They made a perfect pairing with the fiber and I do believe there are a few new spinners out there now because of them. Sharon and Sairy each bought one and Cheeky got to help them along with their spinning a bit. Yes people, I’m enabling my friends just as much as my customers these days and I loved every min. of it!

I learned so much about so many things this weekend, both related to selling my wares as well as spinning and people and relationships. Cheeky and I had never met in person before Saturday and now I feel like I’ve known her for years! Her experience was absolutely instrumental in my success and I couldn’t possibly thank her enough. And then what did she do? Not only did she buy up a bunch of my fiber herself, she also gifted me this:

I had been debating buying some of this from a vendor a couple of booths down from me (I bought some lovely soap from him last year) and when I wasn’t looking Cheeky bought it for me! Thanks again Cheeky! I’m so glad we were able to get to know each other more this weekend!

A couple of times during the weekend people came up to say hello because they recognized me from the blog or were in SOS. I feel terrible that I can’t remember all your names (I found Susan on Ravelry this morning though! Hi!), but thanks so much for saying hello! Considering the state of the world these days, it definitely made me feel wonderful that you would have the courage to do that. You made my day!

Another highlight was a younger girl who is so obviously infected with the fiber bug that her enthusiasm just lit up the place. First, she and her Mom bought some fiber. Then they came back for a spindle but they didn’t have the cash (“Mom, don’t you have money in the car?!”) so I set it aside for them to buy through etsy, then the girl came back happily waving cash. Then she ran off again only to return to ask me to help her getting started. When I related this story to HWJF later and told him that I could see the flash of fiber love in her eyes, he said something about knowing what that looks like. Later in the day Sharon and Sairy saw her happily spinning away. Another one hooked! Yay!

The final highlight? On the way home as we discussed the goings on of the weekend HWJF told me that if I was to do something like this again, he’d be taking the whole weekend off to be there with me because he wants to and that he’s really looking forward to Rhinebeck. Maybe it was this bug I can’t seem to kick or the exhaustion, but tears of joy were shed.

There were so many other moments this weekend that I could go on forever. My only regret was that I wasn’t quite feeling myself because of this damn cold that is still hanging on, but I couldn’t have been happier with the results of the show both in sales and in the people I met and the friendships that were formed or grew. I really can’t thank those of you that helped me enough!! You are all amazing!! I’m definitely looking forward to doing this again next year if I can and I may even investigate other opportunities to do some vending.

For those of you that couldn’t make it and are jonesing for a fiber fix, never fear! As soon as I recover a bit and get myself organized I’ll be posting plenty of new items in the shop. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know what goes up here.

In the meantime, bring on Rhinebeck!!!!

… the common cold. Oye! I’ve been kind of down and out for the last couple of days thanks to a cold that kept me home on Tuesday and Wednesday (Note to self: Don’t get sick on Jewish holidays. The drs. office won’t be open!). All good intentions of blogging went out the window as booth preparations took what little energy I had. There are still a few more tweeks to be made, but this is about what it’s going to look like this weekend.

As always, clicky to biggie!

Now that I’m starting to feel better, I’m getting more excited about this weekend. The weather is supposed to be great and I’ve got lots of friends helping me out, so I’m looking forward to a good run. In that second pic you can see some of the superwash merino batts I’ve been making up on the new toy. I’m really excited about being to offer these! They’re big and fluffy and the color blends are coming out nicely.

Incidentally, if you’d like to win one of those lovely fluffy batts, hurry on over to the Zarzuela’s Fibers Junkies group on Ravelry! I’m running a contest that ends today!

I’m also excited to be able to offer some of Eklectica’s beautiful spindles! I talked about the one she gave me to review in this post. She’s got a bunch of different woods and weights in what she sent me which is going to make it very hard to see them all go!

Anyway, if you’re going to be at the festival this weekend, do stop by and say hello! I’ll be inside one of the barns but I won’t know which one until I get there. I’m sure I’ll have lots to report next week!

Finally, while I was on the couch for more hours than I care to count, I finished up sleeve #1 of the Rhinebeck sweater:

I’m sure you can see my little goof there, but ya know what? Nobody’s perfect and I’m just going to leave it. It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a mis-crossed cable in there somewhere! Sleeve number 2 is well under way, but the fact that there are only two weeks left to get this thing finished is making me a little nervous! There’s still seaming! And a button band! And a collar! And I have to find buttons!

I think I’ll take a little lesson from Scarlet O’Hara here:

I’ll think about it…. MONDAY!

You know, after the festival.

Have a great weekend everyone! Wish me luck!!

So that new toy I was waiting for the other day? It came!!

What could it be?!

(Clickie to biggie. You know you wanna!)

That would be a brand spankin’ new Strauch Finest Doublewide drum carder! Having sold my Lendrum and everything that went with it recently I figure it was time for the investment. My first thought when I opened up the box? “Holy hell what did I do?!?” It’s kind of ginormous. But after getting the pieces in place and making my first batt, I’m quite happy with my purchase. Look at the fluffy goodness!

Yet another sucky indoor at night picture, but you get the idea. I weighed the batt and it turned out to be about 2 3/8 ounces which is definitely not a bad size. Rolled out it’s huge. I think felters would definitely love the batts that come off this baby (although not this one since it’s superwash merino). I know I can’t wait to have enough angora to start blending stuff for myself. I even worked on the giant bag o’ cormo that I’ve got washed last night in preparation for that day.

I spent some quality time with this book during the week and I’ve got some solid color dyed fiber drying at home as I type, so my weekend plans involve parking myself with the carder in front of some football and making a bunch of batts for the festival booth. Considering the weather (and the fact that I’ve apparently done something to my left knee that isn’t going to resolve itself quickly), I think that’s a good plan.

There’s some finished spinning in my world too.

Hope you aren’t tired of looking at this colorway because there’s at least two more skeins of it to come. This one is about 812 yards and was on superwash merino. It will be on its way to its new owner tomorrow. It’s definitely tough to let this one go, but hopefully it will spread a ray of sunshine in its new home.

Hope y’all have a great weekend and stay dryer than I am!!

P.S. I totally think this might need to be my next wheel!

I’ve got fast approaching deadlines in my life, mostly involving getting ready for the festival. I had a little freak out last week but I think I’m over it. When I’m not home, I’m working on the Rhinebeck sweater:

Craptastic photo courtesy of mother nature and indoor flash pics at night. Where did summer go?!?

That’s the back and both fronts, just completed this week. A sleeve is in progress at the moment. Leigh was kind enough to give me the heads up that there’s been some discussion on Ravelry about the saddle not working out quite right and/or there being a little too much fabric in the main part of the sleeve. Thank you so much for pointing out these discussions Leigh! I’m finding it terribly difficult to keep up with the number of groups that might be of interest to me on Ravelry! There’s just so much valuable information and only so many hours in the day! Who knew that this book had its own group?! Well.. obviously Leigh did.

So what to do about these sleeve issues. Well, having laid things out I decided to see how my sleeve matched up to the rest of the sweater so far.

Not quite there yet.

I think I’ll continue to increase as written in the directions until it looks as though they’ll fit. Then I’ll just knit even if I need more length to match my measurements. I’ll probably end up doing the same with the saddle since there’s apparently an issue there too. I’m just glad I knew up front. I don’t need any more stress in my life right now.

Another great stress reliever was having another spinning gathering at my house on Saturday and spending a glorious day outside with Carolyn, Deb, Kim and Anne. Did I get a single picture? Of course not. That’s just how I roll lately. I really should have busted out the camera when I shared the glory of chocolate mug cake with Anne and Kim before they left. Let’s just say it was worth a good laugh (and it’s seriously good for the taste buds too, but you might want to share with a friend). Just make sure you have a spatula ready if you’re going to do it in a cup too small. Just sayin’.

I suppose I could write more but I’m just too distracted at the moment. I’m stalking the UPS dude waiting for a new toy. More soon.

My parents were kind enough to come down and visit last weekend and brought me some supplies for the upcoming Garden State Sheep Breeders booth. I see no reason to buy things when I can borrow tables and such and make a perfectly respectable space.

My booth will be 10 x 10, so we measured it out and got the starting set up going.

It isn’t much, but I think with a few more tweeks, it will suffice. My favorite feature, of course, is the display stand my Dad built me. He’s been known to be rather handy with the power tools so he made this for me out of some scraps of wood and an old coffee mug rack* that was lying around the house.

Pretty slick eh?

Now all I have to do is get everything dyed, braided, labeled and packed before Oct. 4th. My goal is to have 50 lbs. of fiber dyed. I’ve got 16 14 more to go (and only 15 days to do it. EEEeeep!!).

Perhaps there *is* a light at the end of this tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train?!?

* Little story for you: My Mom has always had a big coffee cup collection. She bought this rack to display it (or a good part of it) on the wall of our kitchen when I was a kid. Many of the mugs were very special coming from vacation memories or places that she visited, etc. etc. One day she decided to hang the rack and all the mugs which would go over our kitchen table. She got the rack on the wall and started putting up the mugs and being a good “helper” I wanted to be involved (I was probably under 10 years old at the time). She told me *not* to stand on the kitchen table to do it. Fine. We kept hanging mugs but eventually needed to be able to reach farther so she got up on the kitchen table (which was one of those metal ones with a leaf in it to extend it a bit). I followed. Sure enough, the table gave way in the middle under the weight of both of us and we and all the mugs came crashing down. I remember the crashes seeming to come in unending waves of breakage. Some things were salvageable. Some were not. The rack? I had no idea that we still had it until my Dad showed it to me a few weeks back to see if I could use it for the booth!
Moral of the story: Listen to what Mom says, not what she does!

Have a great weekend!! You know what I’ll be doing.