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!