more Maryland
I had no idea I had so many photos until I started loading them. This is a very photo heavy post. You can also see all of the photos here on my flickr account. It’s been so cold and dreary here the last few days that it’s making the sunny 80 degree days of Maryland feel so distant. Here’s one photo of Amie, Bess, Jennifer and me that I am sorry that I didn’t take. Thank you, Mary for taking the photo.
On Friday after setting up the Spirit Trail booth, Amie, Clara and I walked around the sheep barns. I was so fascinated by all of the different breeds of sheep. The little Angora goats who give us merino were so cute.
I was so fascinated by the woman spinning straight from the Angora rabbit. She’s just pluck off a bit of fur and spin with it.
I’d never seen a sheep shearing before, so I had to go watch and it was fascinating. This was a Lincoln sheep and the guy sheared her with what they call blades, which look like huge chef’s knives made into scissors.
Here’s the Lincoln sheep before shearing. 
Shearing the back. 
The Lincoln sheep after her lovely hair cut, she seems to like her new summer do. 
Lots of sheep were seen and many photos taken. I don’t know the breeds of most of the sheep that I took photos of, so if you know what breed they are, please let me know. They were all so cute and I loved hearing all of the “baa”-ing through the barns.
I love the four horns on the Jacob sheep. 
One of them decided to “baa” as I was taking the photo, so I have a photo of a sheep sticking it’s tongue out at me.
These are Karakul sheep, 
a breed that I’d never heard of before and I thought they looked really interesting. There was also a mama sheep with her lamb 
, which I thought was so adorable. 
One thing with walking through all of the barns, you can’t miss the sheep that are getting ready 
for their show. They never seemed to happy about it and let it be known. More sheep: 
There were also llamas and alpacas enjoying their stay at Maryland.
Llama. 
Alpaca, which are very beautiful and hum to themselves.
The prize winning items were so fabulous, these were two of my personal favorites.
The sheep sweater 
and the knitted kitty 
. Some of the other prize winning items were so amazing, but of course, I didn’t get photos of those.
And of course, a trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool wouldn’t be complete without a bit of shopping.
As we were helping Jennifer of Spirit Trail unpack her trailer, I fell in love with this green and pink sock yarn. 
I also bought this lone little orange skein of sock yarn from Spirit Trail. 
After admiring some of the Blue-face Leicester that Bess had bought last year, I bought some for myself at Hartwhistle Fibres in Michigan. 
She also had these really great British breeds sampler packs with three colors of Blue-face Leicester, white Shetland and Moorit Shetland, Manx Loughton, Massam, Wensleydale, a Wensleydale and Massam blend, Cotswold and Black Welsh. 
This unfortunately was her last show and I know she’ll be missed greatly by fiber fans at Maryland.
Another fabulous purchase was this “Candy Cane” merino top 
from Stony Mountain Fibers in Virginia.
I also bought some Chasing Rainbows Bombyx/Merino top. 
And 800 yards of laceweight Cashmere. 
