Sunday, April 15, 2007

Part I – Chancellor’s Sheep & Wool Festival

Yesterday, Mike and I went to our very first Sheep & Wool Festival ever. Not just of this year, you understand, but ever. We had a great time! We went to the Chancellor’s Sheep & Wool Festival at the Clermont State Historical site in Germantown, NY. What a beautiful place it was, right on the Hudson River, up on a hill. The weather was kind of gray and a little bit cold, but we enjoyed ourselves a lot in spite of it. I did feel sorry for some of the vendors, though; they had no place to go in out of the cold and couldn’t even walk around to keep warm. I did notice a LOT of hand-knit sweaters keeping folks warm, though. ;o)

There was a fellow who was demonstrating how to shear sheep with hand-shears and talking away at the same time. There wasn’t a nick anywhere on the sheep that I could see, and even though the poor sheep looked so uncomfortable, they were all kind of mellow about it all. He sheared three sheep during the course of the day, and not once did he get kicked that I could see, and I would have kicked him if he had man-handled me like those poor ewes. I’ve put up some pictures today, including one of the shearing, for your viewing pleasure.

Now for what you really want to know; what goodies did I get? It was soooo hard to decide what to actually buy; there was so much stuff there and much of it was so gorgeous that it was just hard to make up my mind. It was not a very large festival; it kind of reminded me of the small Garlic Festival we go to on Labor Day weekend every year in Vermont. Not a large area, but maybe 20 (maybe a few more or less) tents of vendors, some crafts for kids, some historical things going on, and, of course, food. The vendors sold everything from pillows stuffed with wool to jewelry to weaving supplies and woven items to spinning supplies and equipment to roving and wool from sheep and alpacas and pretty much any other animal you can get fiber from.

I saw some gorgeous hand-knits and felted items and it was just so difficult to walk away from some of the stuff. I’m sure you can understand how I was feeling. I finally narrowed it down to two places that I wanted to go back to; one had some lace-weight in the most beautiful colorways and the other had alpaca from her own animals. I did decide finally on the alpaca; I’m not really a lace person, though this was pretty stuff, and I finally just decided that I would probably not use it. The alpaca I bought is a nice weight, maybe you would say it was worsted weight or a little thicker, but so soft I just could not leave it behind. I picked out a beautiful soft creamy white – four two-ounce hanks at $10 each. The owner said it would be about 130 yards per hank, so about 520 yards. Now I’m not sure exactly what I can make from this amount and type of yarn, but even if I only fondle it periodically, I consider it worth the price. I also bought, from the same vendor, the most adorable felted llama (see the picture I’ve posted with the yarn). It was so cute; how could I leave it behind? The yarn and llama came from Aspenwood Alpacas (http://www.aspenwoodfarmalpacas.com/) and the name of the alpaca that my particular wool came from is Ultimo. Ms. Serino, the vendor/farmer, had all the wool sorted by which animal it came from and had pictures and the name of the particular alpaca with each animal’s wool. The felted llama came from Peru via Spruce Ridge Farm (http://www.spruceridgefarm.com/). When I checked out the websites, I found that both are very near me, within ½ hour, driving.

I also bought a 6.4-ounce ball of variegated roving. No, I don’t spin. No, I haven’t done any felting other than knitted fabric. No, I don’t know what on earth I am going to do with it. BUT, I fondled it and I couldn’t leave it behind. I did find something I might consider trying, but I will have to do some research first. We watched a felting demonstration where the woman did both needle-felting and wet-felting to make hats. She explained that she had been a milliner by trade and wanted to try her hand at actually making the materials for the hats and that’s how she got into felting. Anyway, she had on the most interesting scarf I had ever seen. She allowed me to check it out and it appeared to be woven strands of roving, fairly thick strands that is, woven together and fastened somehow on the long edges, and with roving “fringes” or maybe you would call them tassels, on the ends. I have a picture of her wearing the scarf and have cropped the picture to show only the scarf as I don’t think it would be cool of me to post her photo on the Internet without her permission. I did want you to be able to check out the scarf, though, because I think I might try something like that with the roving, though I might also try felting a bit of it or…I don’t know, whatever takes my fancy, I guess.

I also found the cutest silver jewelry; the earrings and the necklace have amethysts set into them, along with a Celtic-style block and a little stylized sheep at the bottom. How could I resist? They also came from near me – go figure that I didn’t know all these places were so close to where I live. The jewelry came from Millpoint Emporium in Amsterdam, NY (http://www.millpointemporium.com/) and that’s only about 20-30 minutes away from me. I’ve posted a picture of the jewelry as well, with a detail shot so you can really see the sheep.

The best part of the day was the present that Mike bought for me. He told me he was going off to the porta-john while I was looking at the roving. When I came out from buying my roving, I looked for him, but couldn’t find him. He showed up a couple of minutes later with a box in a bag – he snuck off and bought me a ball winder to go with the swift he’s working on for me! He is a really great guy, don’t you think? I mean, here’s a guy that doesn’t mind going to see sheep, suggests that we check out yarn shops while we’re out on a ride, buys me yarnie things, and has a good time doing it all; how great is that? I am really a lucky gal.

Part II – Me
Doing better the last couple of weeks; doc changed up my meds and I’m feeling a little less down. I still have some health and diet issues, but I’m trying to work through them. I’ll get there; it’ll just take time. In the meantime, I’ll keep knitting and writing my way through. I think it helps, so why not?

Remember, wear natural fibers; hug your cat!
Ellen