Monday morning and what a weekend!

I took my Mom to the NH Sheep and Wool Festival yesterday. She’s not a knitter or spinner but loves to look at fiber and colors etc and since we were spending the day together . . .

I also brought several fleeces that I had at home with me to send off with Zeilingers for processing. Some time in July I’m going to receive a very large box with a whole lot of roving. I had 19lbs of Finn/Rambouillet and 16lbs of Romney that I brought with me so I should (guessing here as I haven’t done this before) but I think I’ll end up with about 10 and 8 lbs respectively, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 sweaters!

We then started shopping. After a quick walk through most of the buildings with vendors we began to make some decisions. We had talked for a while about my knitting Mom a sweater some time. She saw several yarns and rovings that were dyed swirls of blues, greens and purples that she liked and another roving that was yellows, oranges and reds with some brown and white that she also liked. Not being a spinner I think she was a little nervous about buying them since she didn’t really know what they would come out like. So she picked out a nice Romney fleece, it had good crimp and was nice and clean and reasonably priced. After walking around a bit more she announced she’d rather have a shawl than a sweater . . . now the plan is to have her fleece processed and when it comes back I’ll spin it and we may do the dying together and then I’ll make her a shawl.

I did some very restrained (for me) shopping. Having shown up with 35lbs of fleece in the trunk of my car, I knew exactly how much it could hold for the ride back home! But I was good and didn’t go crazy. My first purchase was 2 oz of Alpaca in a lovely chestnut brown. I haven’t spun alpaca before and really want to give it a try. I’m thinking of spinning a fine single from it and then plying with a single of a complementary shade of brown wool (after I find that wool) but we’ll see.

After that I had a lovely chat with Janet and Brooks frm Kisakanari who raise Jacob sheep. They had some beautiful fleeces and the most amazing shawl knit in about 8 different colors of home spun Jacob fleece in a large circular pattern, very lacey and very beautiful. They showed me how their skirting table was constructed of wood and pvc pipe (and even offered to explain it to my husband if I can’t make him understand how it was constructed!) and I bought a lovely 2lb Jacob fleece from them with some amazing colors in it. That will be my next spinning project (I think ;) ) I’m planning to seperate the colors and spin each one individually and to do the spinning in the grease. This is something I haven’t done before but I’ve been looking for just the right fleece to try it on and this seems like the one! Janet said I should be able to spin this fleece right out of the bag, no carding or anything, so I’m going to give it a try.

Next I picked up some more sock yarn (If I ever actually knit all these socks I’m going to need a bigger sock drawer!) it was Fortissima which I didn’ t have any of and haven’t tried yet. That is one of my goals right now, to try “all” the sock yarns and it may take me a while!

Then we found someone with Angora rabbits (actually we saw a few but by Sunday afternoon most were down to selling rabbits and where out of fiber. Anyway, I got 1 oz of Chocolate angora and 1 oz of Fawn angora from Fraser Farm Fibers. I’m looking forward to having a chance to practice with angora before my girls are big enough to really give me any . . . though I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. Perhaps baby clothes? I’m sure something will come to me!

Then when we were basically on our way out we found Spin-n-Knit crafts from Crown Point NY. I wasn’t sure at first what it was in their booth that was “calling” to me, but it didn’t take long to find that mom and I both really liked this dark, like darkroast coffee colored wool/alpaca blend that they had. So a pound of that just had to come home with me. Some is going into Mom’s shawl and I think DH and I may have to fight it out for the rest.

We had also planned to go to a nearby fabric store but they were closed by the time we got there so that has been postponed to another day . . .

When I got to show my new “treasure” to my husband last night he seemed impressed with the variety I had and also with the fact that I didn’t come home with a whole car load. He was, however, eyeing the wool/alpaca blend and commented that it looked like something that should be a man’s sweater (hint, hint). So I may just have to contact them and have them send me some more . . ..

My other current project has been to finish his socks. He got one for x-mas and I’ve been struggling with the second one for what seems like forever! I have one more repeat of the leg pattern (ribbing with a cable) and then a little 1×1 ribbing at the top and then they are done!!!

I’m still hoping to add some pics soon, I just didn’t have time over the weekend. . . .

Have a Happy Monday!