Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

I thought about not going to MSWF this year. "I'm planning a wedding!" I argued. "I have things to do that weekend!" I contended. "I don't need any more yarn, holy crapamoley have you looked at my hideously messy extremely creative craft room!" I exclaimed.

Yeah, of course I went to Sheep and Wool. I didn't even stick to my budget (although I stayed fairly close to the budget I would have set myself, had I really bothered to set a budget). I took some terrible photos of my new acquisitions, which my photographer in residence has nixed. Apparently my practice of tossing yarn on the floor with reckless abandon worked better when the carpeting was beige. Now that I live in home with green carpets in the living room, apparently I should care about this and do something to improve my yarn photography. A pale sheet, for example, would be effective.

Obviously, I was far too excited about WINDING a ball of gorgeous yarn and CASTING ON for a (third) Clapotis to bother with finding a light-colored sheet. But I have been knitting with some Brooks Farm yarn since the Amazing Race last night, and I am in heaven.

The heavenly feeling is largely related to this Clapotis not being an enormous and annoying and why-isn't-it-completed baby blanket. I am at 10.5 repeats out of the suggested 14. It's pretty enormous. I'm thinking 12 repeats may just be the end of it, for me. I did knit the whole way to and from the festival- thanks to my wonderful friend offering to drive.

MSWF is a lot more entertaining to attend with another fiber addict who has totally different coloring from me, but similar tastes in knitting projects. We never had to fight about yarn, since we always were going for different colors. Except for the gorgeous handpainted lace weight, for which I gave in and became a total copycat. I hope we at least pick different scarf patterns for it!

In the end, I walked away with another bunch of Tess Yarn- worsted purple, destined to become a February Lady Sweater. Tess's new Baby Bunny, in Hot Pink!, which I think would be cute for a baby sweater, or maybe even socks. The aforementioned vari-colored lace yarn for a decorative scarf. Two skeins of a mottled green from Brooks Farm for my Clapotis (to replace the hot pink one I made in grad school- it's time to move on). And I found four skeins of a beautiful red laceweight, because I can never have enough laceweight. Or red.

Not a bad haul. And I enjoyed seeing the different breeds of sheep. Definitely a good weekend! Now... back to the increase rows of that Clapotis, before I give in and work on the baby blanket of doom.