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Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival

I have been going to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival for several years, but last year the truck developed an odd noise in the differential, so I turned around and missed it altogether. I now have a vehicle with fewer than 300,000 miles on it, and I made it to Tunbridge and back. Vermont is really lovely this time of year. The leaves are just about to turn color for the fall season, the air is crisp and clean, and the sun was just startingp to peek out.This is the view from one of the Vermont roadside rest stops along Interstate 89, just before turning off in Sharon to meander over to Tunbridge. The picture on the right is within the fairgrounds.It was just a lovely day, mid 60’s. Below are pictures of some of the things I did not buy while I was attending. I was quite good, actually, as the prior week I had been quite naughty, and purchased an eSpinner.

This week I purchased a set of stitch markers from Katrinkles for myself, and spent the rest of the time purchasing gifts for Peg, including a Festival bag and a couple of shawl pins – at least enough to outfit the shawls I’ve made her.

There were all manner of things to buy, from tiny stitch markers to sheep. I’m quite certain Peg would not enjoy coming home from West Virginia to find a sheep or three in the yard. She’s flexible, but she already has to put up with me. Yet I behaved! I even left behind fleeces that were just lovely. There were two Cotswold fleeces that called to me, but I ignored them. I have two downstairs now waiting for the carding to commence… So, OK, maybe I don’t need another fleece right now. Those spinning wheels I didn’t bring home were beautiful, but I cannot at this point make a cogent argument for more than eight wheels.

Vermont

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Yes, I am a fiber whore

Peg and I drove out to Greenwich (that’s Green-witch for those of us who have difficulty pronouncing it) NY on Sunday to attend the Adirondack Sheep and Wool Arts Festival.  Given the seven spinning wheels at home, I was certainly not thinking of purchasing another. Entrance to the Festival was through a building lined with vendors. One of the vendors had an Ashford eSpinner 3 set up for demonstration. Of course I tried it, but at $840 I just walked on past. I had brought $300 with me, just in case, but I also had seven spinning wheels at home, down from eight because I gave one to Angela, who is not our daughter, but we’d certainly be proud to have her.

So, we wandered around the Festival for a while, seeing our friend Jan, our friends Jen & Tim, and a number of other people we know from New England shows, plus a whole lot of other people we’d never met before. We stopped by a wet-felting demonstration put on by the Northeast Feltmakers Guild which was quite interesting. Yes, I ended up joining the Guild, because felting is one of the many fiber things I do.

We managed to get through the entire Festival virtually unscathed. I spent $9 on some knitting cables, and $7 for a half pound of fudge. Then we meandered out, and there was that eSpinner again. I stopped. Again. I spun. Again. And I was really going to walk away, because $800 is more than a little bit of money. Peg said “It can be your anniversary gift”, as I had declined a gift at the end of August (August 28 was 42 years for us – seriously, we got married during the Bicentennial year!). I demurred. “It can be Christmas as well.”. When she got to “It can be your birthday too.”, I succumbed.

That was bad enough, I suppose, but today I ordered a “Woolee Winder” which will make things even easier – it automatically winds the yarn onto the bobbin, neatly, so I never have to stop spinning until I fill the bobbin (which at a half-pound capacity, is a LOT).

We’ll see how this works out. Next weekend? Saturday will find me driving up to the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival, plus on Sunday I’ll be demonstrating spinning at the Harvard Alpaca Ranch, as it’s National Alpaca Farm Days, apparently.

Keep on spinning!