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.

Goodness, where to start. Three words describe this weekend – fun, overwhelmingly-wonderful and exhausting (okay, so it’s technically four).

I’ll just start from the beginning. Btw, I don’t have my cable to hook my camera up at the moment (I’m still in transit and will be home later today), so no photos of the festival until tomorrow.

I arrived in Maryland on Thursday. Amie met me at the airport and was a wonderful hostess. She showed me around downtown Baltimore a bit after a fabulous meal at a local Indian restaurant. I even got to meet a joy of a dog – Jackie. She’s so sweet and going to be quite a dog when she grows up. Amie, you were a wonderful hostess, I couldn’t have asked for better.
Friday was the beginning of the excitement, otherwise known as, Maryland Sheep & Wool. I met Clara, Bess, Martha, Sheila and Jennifer. Clara, from Knitter’s Review, is a true delight and much funnier than I expected. Bess is a wonderful person, she’s the type of librarian and spinner that I hope to become. Go read her account of this weekend, she captured it perfectly. After helping Jennifer set up the SpiritTrail booth, Amie, Clara and I wandered around the sheep barns. It was so great to see all of the sheep that I’ve only heard about. I couldn’t stop giggling hearing all of those sheep “baaing” and we came to the conclusion that they sound like a bunch of frat boys on a crazy drunken evening belting out burps. The sheep were so cute and I thank every one of the sheep farmers who take care of their sheep to bring wonderful fibers to me. I am not one of the many fairgoers who dream of owning their own sheep, I have too much spinning and knitting to do and am thankful that there are those who want to own sheep.

Saturday truly began the festival. I had no idea what I was in for. I’ve been to Stitches Midwest but this was bigger and in my mind better. This is more geared towards spinners than Stitches. The tradition of fiber and sheep in Maryland is so obvious and eminates through the fairgrounds. Amie and I wandered around the fairgrounds checking out all of the vendors. With a limited budget it was hard to get myself into a spending mode, I had to shop with care and assess each purchase. Photos of purchased items will be in a later post as they are currently zooming through the mail to arrive at my house later this week. At one point in the day, Amie and I met up with Eunny and Stephanie. Eunny is trying out wheels.

One thing that I set out to do was just to try other spinning wheels, not to buy but just to see what they are like. I just wanted to know that I could sit down at almost any wheel, even the lovely dreamy Saxony wheels and spin. Well, I did just that trying out the very dreamy Kromski Polonaise, an amazing Norm Hall wheel, a Robin wheel and the Hitchhiker. I really loved how smooth the Polonaise and the Norm Hall wheels spun and fell in love with single treadle wheels. I was also able to touch and just treadle on Bess’s amazing new Golding wheel. When I was looking at wheels just over a year ago, I always assumed that a double treadle was better, but I’ve been proven wrong. After trying out these wheels and a relaxing lunch with knitters from KR, I was all ready to start buying some fiber. I think I did very well on a small budget. (Bess’s advice of bringing only cash was the best advice anyone could have given me.) I also had the pleasure of meeting Lolly who recognized me in The Fold booth and so many others that I can’t remember their names at the moment.
Sunday, I took an all day Novelty Yarns spinning class with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. What an absolutely wonderful class. I learned to spin several types of novelty yarns (photos to come soon), including flame yarn (slubby yarn), bouclé, marled, encasement and frosting. She also allowed us to spin some fibers that I’ve never spun with before – cotton. I don’t think I’ll be spinning much with cotton but it’s a fiber that I want to practice on. And the most important thing I learned in class wasn’t a type of yarn but how to draw out the fiber so that my spinning was much more even with any fiber. After she showed me short-quick draws my yarn was instantly even, smooth and consistent. She also showed us a very cool method of “felting” the outside of your fiber top to get a really nice even yarn that practically spins itself. My samples from class aren’t spectular but now I know the techniques to practice and make them spectular. Sunday also meant saying good-bye to new friends, but not before trying out some more wheels. I already miss them. I feel so inspired after being around such a great group of women all weekend and their advice on spinning is priceless.

Monday, Amie and I sat down and I tried to teach her everything I’d learned in my Novelty Yarns class. Then we wandered around Michael’s and Joann’s looking for silk thread to use for bouclé yarns. After we packed up all of my fiber purchases and mailed them, I flew to Chicago in the afternoon. I was exhausted from the weekend. Dinner with my sister was nice then we came home to watch Medium.

This weekend was more about just the festival, it was also about absorbing as much as I could from some spinners that I really admire. Friday, Amie and I sat down and she showed me how to spin woolen. For several months, my back has bothered me when I’ve sat down to spin. I thought a new chair would help but spinning for more than an hour has been uncomfortable. Amie noticed right away how I twist to the left when I spin. I had noticed it but it never occured to me that I was doing it all the time. Now I know my source of the spinning back aches. After trying out the Kromski wheel and the other single treadle wheels, I realized that I could sit a bit diagonally to the wheel and treadle with my right foot instead of having to sit straight on like I do with Matilda, my Lendrum. I love Matilda and thought maybe trying a single treadle Lendrum would solve things for me. I used it for the entire day in my class and I found the single treadle Lendrum to be difficult to spin on, the dead spot when the footman reaches the top of it’s trip around was more than I could handle. I really had to work to get the momentum going for it to feel comfortable. After trying out the single treadle Lendrum all day in class, I decided I had to do some wheel shopping and I have always wanted to try the Ashford wheels. I tried an Ashford Traditional and an Ashford Traveller, I thought about trying the Joy but I knew that I would probably lean over more than I should and end up with the same problems. Spinning on the Traditional and the Traveller were very smooth and I fell in love with the Traveller. Bess and Amie were there when I tried out the Ashford wheels as enablers/supporters/advisors. Their support really helped me decide which wheel to get. Bess had a similar problem and knew exactly where to put the wheel for maximum spinning comfort. The Traveller comes standard as a double treadle but it was so easy to spin using just one treadle. I’m going to get the double-drive wheel with double-drive and scotch-tenstion avaiable all on the same wheel. I figure I’ll learn about double-drive later, but having it as an option is wonderful. I love Matilda and I know I’ll find her a good home. I get misty-eyed just thinking about sending her off to her new home. I have to finish spinning the garden yarn before I can send her off though. I’m definitely not ruling out another Lendrum in my future when I can afford to have more than one wheel, they are so versatile and require so little maintenance.

It’s Tuesday and I’m heading home by train this afternoon. I have one more day to recover then it’s back to work. Also I’ve been receiving so many spam comments that now I’m requiring people to register to leave comments. Sorry if this is inconvenient but it was ridiculous to come home to over 25 spam comments on my blog.

Okay, so I work in a library I guess it’s obvious I’m naturally a sucker for books. One of the best things about working in a library is I see a lot of knitting books. In the last week, I’ve brought home so many knitting books just to look through. I’m sure you’ve all seen some of them before but I thought I’d just give my two cents. If you have books on your list that you think you might want to buy, I highly suggest checking them out at the library first, then if you really like it buy away.

Holiday Knits by Sara Lucas and Allison Isaacs.
This was on the new shelf and I hadn’t seen it before. I realize the holidays are about eight months away but I thought it looked like a cute book. It reminds me a lot of Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. When I opened it up I saw this adorable hat, I had to check it out. I think I’ve found the hat for my soon-to-be-born nephew (Bryan’s sister’s son).

It’s so cute and if I can find a little fish to knit and put in it, it will be just perfect. The kid’s dad fishes and I couldn’t resist this. There are several other cute patterns in this book, nothing too original but some cute ideas. I also really like the Cosmetics Bag, I think it would be a great little knitting tools bag if I lined it.

The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd
I love this book. I have the The Knitters Handy Book of Patterns and I love it. Now a book of sweater patterns. This one is definitely going on my list of books to buy when I am able to buy knitting books again. I also love the fact that she gives you patterns for the sweaters that are shown throughout the book.

Hand Knits for the Home by Caroline Birkett.
This book looked like such a cool book but I don’t think I’ll make anything out of it. My biggest complaint was that some of the projects were so hard to see. There is a really cool table runner but you can’t really see what it looks like because the photo shows the table runner on a table but from the side. How am I supposed to know where to put the beads and little butterfly stitches if there is no schematic, chart or a good photo. I wanted to like this book but I just couldn’t like it as much as I wanted. The photos were too artsy for the projects (seems to be a trend) and some of the projects were knitted in dark colors so I couldn’t see the detail. I want to see the projects not the fancy photos and good fancy photos sometimes make me want to make the project.

The Knitted Rug: 21 Fantastic Designs by Donna Druchunas.
I thought this book was really cool. So many of the designs were a bit too nice for me to just throw on the floor and let the cats lay all over. I guess if I’m going to put that much time into something I don’t want it to get ruined. What intrigued me was the rug on the cover. It could be a very cool rug and if I had hardwood floors it would work even better. I can’t say I’m going to be making any rugs anytime soon but maybe when we have our very own house, I’ll get out those large needles and knit up a great little rug.

Knitting with wire by Nancie M. Wiseman.
I really like the concept but I think I’ll let others do this. The book was cool to look at but some of the projects seem so impractical to me, but then again knitting socks seems so impractical to so many non-knitters who’ve never worn hand-knit socks.

I’m leaving for Chicago this evening so that I can fly out to Maryland tomorrow. I’m so excited! I’ve checked my list and I have the basics – clothes, books and, of course, knitting. I’ll be working on the “Go with the Flow” socks, which are coming along quite nicely.

Four years ago today, I started you, Hobo sweater. I was filled with excitement for a beautiful raspberry-colored sweater made out of a lovely cashmere and silk yarn. It was an interesting time. I was still dealing with the loss of my dear grandmother and was four months from meeting the man who would be my husband two years later. I was living in a wonderful old apartment and teaching knitting in Chicago. Times were not only interesting personally but world-wide too. September 11 was less than a year past and there was only talk of war in Iraq with everyone hoping that it wouldn’t get to that point.

Little did I know that just like the world our relationship would become tumultuous too. Our relationship would make me question my ability as a knitter and prove that I should practice what I preach. Many students have heard my “lecture” on gauge and how important it is but when their own teacher doesn’t follow it, it can only lead to disaster.

After avoiding you for over a year because I detested the size 3 needles and there were many more interesting projects, I decided to work on you hoping to finish by the end of 2006. I think nearing the end of the Barbara shawl prompted me to work on you. That was when disaster struck, I was 2/3 of the way through the first half of you and I went to retrieve a new ball of yarn. I realized that I was going to run out of yarn before you were finished. I’ve never cried over a sweater before but boy did I cry over your former self. After a night of coming to terms with the idea of ripping out 2/3 of half of you, I did what any good knitter would do. I turned on a mentally unchallenging program (Days of Our Lives), pulled out the ball winder and let her rip.

Within three weeks after restarting you, I started the body of the first half of you. Then I quickly tired of the 167 stitches knowing that I would have nearly 200 rows to knit. Other projects were much more tempting like the Fleurette scarf in Kidsilk Haze, Norwegian mittens, Christmas mittens with a matching hat, various pairs of socks and an attempt at a Snowflake vest. Then something happened on February 22 of this year. I picked you up and we haven’t been apart for long since. In a matter of six weeks, I finished one half of you and am diligently working on the second half of you. I promise to fulfill my promise of finishing you by the end of this year, as long as you keep up your end of the deal – don’t run out of yarn. Here’s to May 2nd next year being a celebration of a completed Hobo sweater!

And give my regards to your friend the Crazy Green sweater. One day she too will receive the love that she deserves. Until then let her know she’s not forgotten.