What does it mean when a friend greets you at CTSW by growling out "B-I-I-I-I-T-C-H-H-H"? Heh. It means she read this post and might perhaps maybe was - ahem - a bit enabled? Heh heh. Still River Mill's yarns are simply too irresistable. A bit of redundancy in that statement, but ya know, it fits the yarns. I do need to correct my description of the lace weight I fell in love with. Deirdre tells me it is cashllama, a super fine llama down with no cashmere in it. It's just so dang fine and soft, you think it's cashmere. They do have an assortment of cashmere yarns but the cashllama is not one of them. Somebody beat me to all the black (which apparently isn't black but darkdarkdark brownthatlooksblack) but there will be more. I could have - and may still - succumbed to the siren of Stampede. That's an indescribably exotic blend of bison, yak, quiviet or some such. All that luscious blending still noodles my neurons. You try going into their booth and come out knowing all those yummy mixes. I dare ya. You can do that at MDSW in less than a week. And yes, they will have a nice assortment of the Greener Shades dyes in stock. I confess, I bought nothing in their booth. Yet. But, I did not come away from the festival empty handed.
I started my day at the sheep festival with a T-shirt, 100% cotton from the lovely Cotton Sheep.
Never heard of a Cotton Sheep? Well. You just never know what the minds of fiber festivaling folk will come up with.
This lovely scarf slide, my second purchase of the day, is the work of Leslie Wind, a very talented jewelry artist. She teaches workshops, too.
Towards the end of the day, I wandered into a booth I didn't recognize, drawn in by a whole wall of
beautiful batts of fine wools. Two of them caught my eye and I stood there fondling 
both. The woman tending the booth at that moment briefly explained about them to me, and said something about my making a choice. Choice? I said. Whaddaya mean choice? I'll take 'em both. Would you have left either one behind? I see nuno felt shawls in both of these batts. And then the booth owner returned. Turns out she is a friend, Sheryl Amaral of Spin A Bit (no website that I can find) so no wonder I felt at home.
As for fleece... well. Yes. In previous years, CTSW has always meant some polwarth fleece for me, but the Australian supplier's spouse is dreadfully ill, so there were no plowarth fleeces this year. Please take a moment to send healing thoughts to someone in need.
I did find a booth with two fleeces sitting there that must have been saved just for me. It was the end of the day. The fleeces are not only brilliantly white, crimpy and cleancleanclean, they are soft enough to warrant an intimate experience with my angora. One fleece is an ultra soft cormo from a 7 year old ewe named Bella. The other is an almost as soft cormo x border leicester from a ewe named Sara. They live in Vermont and I may just have to reserve a future fleece or two. And no, I'm not naming the sheep breeder until I secure that reservation. Ha! No pictures of either fleece though. I took them straight to Greg and Deirdre with instructions to wait for angora to grow, then blend and spin for lace weight. 7 or 8 pounds or so, depending on how much angora I decide to add. I could add silk to some of it, too. Most of the yarn will be for sale, so if anyone has a preference on content, let me know.
After the shopping spree festival a number of us stopped for an Indigo Di spin in. What a lovely home she keeps! And the lady makes a delicious tart. If you didn't go, you missed a nice time. I pulled out Sonata and started spinning some of the merino angora I carded and dizzed a couple weeks ago. My wheel wasn't quite so enthusiastic, perhaps lazy because I exercise her so little. I oiled her up, then adjusted drive band, fiddled with the bobbin - still cranky. Treadling was distinctly not effortless as it should be and has been. I sort of sat there looking at it, just saying huh cause I was stumped. So Marcy took a look. I swear, that's all she did. She gave Sonata a look. And Sonata just straightened right up. Some people you just don't mess with.
All in all, a delightful day.
I'm babysitting Gromit this week. He's eight and a half years old now, and starting to slow down, but he still loves his wander around outside time. As long as someone is with him, he's quite content to poke around in the back yard. But if you take your eyes off him for one second too long, he's gone. Me being the distractable type, yeah, that one second too long thing kind of works for the dog. Which is to say, yesterday I went on a dog hunt. How he disappears so completely so fast, I dunno. But he's talented that way. He's a good friendly dog and really doesn't get into trouble on his wanderings and he will return, but of course there is the safety from cars and mean people or dogs to consider, so I always go looking when he ambles off. During yesterday's hunt, I stopped to ask a woman and her young daughter, strangers to me, on their way to school if they'd seen him. The kind souls understood and were completely ready to mobilize the neighborhood. I told them if they spotted him or found him, I lived one street over in the intense teal house. The mother grinned and said, oh, you're the bunny lady. And the daughter said, "I love that house. It's my favorite-ist house in the world!" A short and silly interaction that just feels good. Here I am thinking I'm nicely unknown in this town, and having seen the looks on people's faces when they see the color of my house that I know it's... well. Not on the Approved List. It was a sweet moment that gave me a giggle.
