Another Maryland Sheep and Wool festival is in the books and didn’t disappoint again this year. This was my second time at this particular festival and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Risa and I drove down Friday night (Thanks for driving again Risa!) so I got some bonus time to work on my new pair of socks (which I still cannot reveal for a bit). Our trip was uneventful (except for that little weasel incident at Cracker Barrel which we shall not discuss) and we settled into our hotel for an early morning the next day.

We arrived at the festival at 8:30am to primo parking and long lines for STR and the festival T-shirts which we avoided carefully. Tess yarns wasn’t quite ready yet so we went off and I did my usual stock up on fiber before 9am. We are power shoppers! After that it was back over to Tess where I picked up four skeins of sock yarn.

The blue one is a new yarn called Peruvian Dream which is a blend of silk, alpaca and merino. Quite yummy! I’ve got colorwork sock ideas bouncing around in my head for these.

The next purchase was the most major for me of the festival. My first fleece!

It’s a 6 lb. cormo fleece and it is incredibly clean and in beautiful condition. It was a bit more expensive than I was expecting, but I think it was totally worth it. Risa is being kind enough to let me borrow her drum carder so that I can mix this baby with some angora when I have it. I think I should experience the process of bringing wool from sheep to yarn so I decided to make the investment. And check out the crimp in this baby!

Beautiful, no?

At this point details begin to get hazy. There was much walking and fondling of fabulous fibers and calculating of budgets. There were also wonderful people sightings! I finally got to meet Carole in person!

It was nice to be able to thank her for three years of SOS help in person!

I also ran into some of my old buds from CT, Sneeksleep and Jenn.

Unfortunately it seems a seriously intermittent case of camnesia set in after that because I know I saw Elinor, Heather, Laura and probably several others throughout the festival, but there is sadly no photographic evidence.

I do have photographic evidence of the NJ Fiber Fanatics meetup on Saturday:

It was really nice to see many of these ladies again since I haven’t been able to get to a spin-in since I moved.

Somewhere along the line there was also a stop at Cloverleaf Farms booth on day one where I picked up some bamboo to spin:

and a little more BFL to add to my collection as well.

After a long day at the festival we went over to Liz’s to say hello and relax for a few hours. I should have gotten pictures of her beautiful cat and dogs too, but obviously I was a bit fried by then.

Then it was off to the Ravelry party where apparently winning something will erase camnesia!

Kim and I both won woolwash! It was a nice party despite the crowding caused by being forced to move inside. If the energy level hadn’t been so low by that time I might have been more social, but it was still fun and rather nice to have something like that provided for all of us I must say.

Day two was much more low key. I finally bought some undyed merino that I had been thinking about all night since Little Barn didn’t have any this time out. It’s pictured here with the other fiber for dyeing.

The final purchase of the festival was four more skeins of sock yarn, Trekking XXL this time because I found a tiny little sign that indicated they were selling it for $3 less than the usual price:

At least two of these are for HWJF and I’m sure nearly all of them will be going on the CSM at the first chance I have to get to it.

Definitely a fun festival overall. I’m still trying to dig out a bit as there were many e-mails and postings for SOS while I was gone. I also came home to a boy with a horrible sunburn and a hell of a hangover from a weekend bachelor party in Miami, Florida. Yeah, when my household goes out to play, we play hard! Hopefully Wednesday’s post will be more punctual. See you then!