The Annual Pilgrimage and an Actual Finished Object

This weekend was the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Originally it looked like I wasn't going to be able to go, due to Mr. T's work/travel schedule, but a last minute rescheduling intervened. I didn't necessarily want to buy any yarn or fiber. Mostly, I wanted to go to breathe in the fiber crafty air and hang out with friends.

It was hot. Very hot. It was almost unbearable inside the buildings and even the tents. You'd think the tents would be cooler because they'd provide shade, but even with the open sides, the breeze couldn't get inside. I heard there were a number of people who got ill from the heat.

Traffic was fine for me. I guess I got there before the hideously long lines started and left when they were small, too. No problems there.

I met up with Rav-friend Tanya before 9 and we made a quick tour of some of the vendors. I found it a bit lackluster this year. Nothing seemed to scream out at me or make me go "oooh." I went to the Brooks Farm booth first, but nothing captured my eye. There was a big Miss Babs booth, but I can get that locally, so I didn't feel the need to brave the crowds to look at the yarn. In the end, I only bought 2 skeins of yarn, and one was for Sr. Jr.


It was a yarn that's new to me - Shalimar Yarns' Zoe Sock. Nice and cushy, with pretty kettle dyed colors. Sr. Jr.'s is dark blue, of course.

There were adorable animals, too, of course:


SOOOO hard not to take one of these home with me!

Tanya and I gave up on the shopping pretty early and then went to hang out and knit until the rest of the crew showed up. It was really nice to see everybody again. People came down from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, all over.

I brought my Business Time socks with me to knit while I chatted. I started these back in November and I was getting pretty sick of them. They're my "waiting room socks," the ones I knit on in doctor's waiting rooms, at Jr. Jr.'s piano lessons, etc. In other words... not very often. But I got far enough on them at the Sheep and Wool Festival that I was inspired to go ahead and finish them. So, here they are:


(Rainy Days & Woolly Dogs OhMyGoth! Sock yarn in Business Time.) They are cashmerey and soft and warm, but they were boring me. But I will love wearing them when the weather turns, many months from now.

In other yarny goodness, the following came to me via one of the Ravelry trade threads:


Tardis yarn! With cashmere, too. The lovely Helena, aka tinygiraffe, aka Midnight Sheep, offered to custom dye some yarn for me, and was kind enough NOT to laugh her head off when I sent her some inch-long bits for her to try to match. She did an amazing job capturing the color I was looking for and in realizing that it looks very Tardis-y :)

I was excited to finish up the Business Time socks because I really wanted to try out some of my Twisted Fiber Arts yarns. I have fallen in love with her colors, so it was about time to get some on the needles. Top picture is with flash, bottom is without. It's hard to capture the exact intensity of the colors:



This is the Lagoon colorway on the Playful base. I'm mesmerized by this yarn. It's so beautiful in person, so soft and cushy, too. I can't stop knitting it. So even though these are my new "waiting room" socks, I've just been knitting them non-stop since I cast on yesterday (well, non-stop in between the laundry, and the errands, etc.). Look for more socks out of this yarn in the future.