Beware! There are sheep!
OK, now that I got all those cute sheep (and goats) out of my system, I can focus on the really important part, shopping!!!!
I traveled down to Eugene with three girls from my Monday night knitting group. It was such a fun road trip, and we had a great time. We started out in the marketplace and I was actually pretty restrained. I bought three new bobbins for my new jumbo flyer. I also got this fun little sampler guy. It is 5 different ancient breeds. I am really excited to play with it. It is from Tactile Fiber Arts in California.
Then, since I need more sock yarn for practicing socks at the Sock Summit, I bought some beautiful sock yarn from Dicentra. Her colorways are so saturated and vibrant that there is no resisting.
I also got some BRIGHT pink Corridale from Dicentra too. This was after buying a small batt of BRIGHT turquoise Coopworth from another vendor. Check out the combination! More of this to come later in the post.
So after wandering around the marketplace for a while, we decided to go visit the sheep (which are the photos from up above). Then, it was time to look at fleeces. I was thinking about buying a fleece or two to blend with my Llama fiber. I wanted to get something that complimented it in color, and I could use the awesome properties of both the llama and the wool in combination to get a really nice blend. I am really glad I did not go at the height of the fleece sale crazyiness because I think I might have gotten caught up in the hooplah. Luckily, 30 or so minutes later it was nice and quiet and I still had my choice of some nice stuff!
And these are the fleeces I got! I was really amazed by the quality of the fleeces. They were amazingly clean with almost no VM, poop, etc. Nice long staples, and so yummy!
First up is a Coopeworth in a really pretty grey/brown color that I think will match my llama beautifully. It comes in just under 5 lbs.
Next, is a beautiful white Romney fleece that won a 5th place ribbon! I have some white llama that I can blend with this, or it could be fun for blending with other things, like the brown llama and alpaca I have, or even just on its own, plus there are the dying possibilities! This one was around 6 pounds.
So, the fleece sale was oh so productive and I was feeling super happy. We loaded everything up in the car, and realized we had like an hour of shopping left! So we went back into the marketplace to look around a little more. Jenny and I got hung up by the drum carders where she was telling me I should buy one, and I was all like, I can’t because they are too expensive. But the lovely couple at Duncan showed me how they work and all the ins and outs of the machine. So I started thinking about it, because I had thought about it in the past. And then I started thinking about the excess of +60lbs of fiber I now own, and since I know the going rate for fiber processing, I was able to quickly start justifying this purchase. After a few short text messages to Joel, this is what I ended up with!
Ain’t she a beauty? Oh, and did I mention that Duncan is amazing and everyone should buy a drum carder from them? The cute old couple are just to die for, and I bought the second to last carder, and there was a whole day left of the festival! That is how good these are. It should last me my whole life if I take good care of it. So, that was the end of the festival. We headed back to Portland and decided on some pizza and wine while hanging out at Lori’s that night. I just HAD to try this baby out myself. So remember that pink and blue I bought?
In a very short amount of time it ended up on the drum carder:
And a few slices of pizza and glasses of wine later it because these three bad boys!
But by then it was time to call it a night. I was EXHAUSTED and needed to get home and get to bed. But bright and early the next afternoon (definately not morning) I geared up the wheel becuase I could just not wait to spin it up! I decided on worsted weight singles (So I wouldn’t have to ply, I am so lazy sometimes!). This is so electric, you can’t even tell by the pictures!
I didn’t weigh it yet, but I would guess that it is at about 4 oz and it was somewhere around 340ish yards I think. I am really impressed with my singles spinning on this one. I was trying really hard to not over twist it. I did a pretty good job I think, there are spots that ended up a little underplyed and actually broke when i was putting it onto the niddy noddy, but I can hide that in the knitting. But now, what to knit with it????
So all in all very productive I think. The credit card is a little sore, but it will get over it. It was an awesome weekend!
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