A Wool Gathering

This weekend was the Wool Gathering, an annual event at Young's Dairy Farm in Yellow Springs, OH. Dave and I checked it out yesterday. The weather was perfect, and I was pleasantly surprised at the offerings. The Wool Gathering is too small to compare to Rhinebeck or the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, but it gets better every year. The number of vendors is growing, the variety of good brands of yarn has expanded, and the variety and quality of home-grown roving, and hand-spun, hand-dyed fibers has expanded. This year's offering was excellent.

As always there was a lot to see.



There were sheep sheering demonstrations.



I passed on the opportunity to touch the newly shorn fleece. Fleece is dirty and downright unsanitary. No thank you.



There were carding and spinning demonstrations and drop spindle lessons.

Visitors could purchase yarn from a specific alpaca, if they chose.

There were music lessons on old-fashioned instruments for the kiddies.



There was fiber art for sale, including woven, knitted, crocheted, felted, quilted, and sewn items.

And there was an amazing array of yarn.






At one booth I found a giant bowl and a crate of Hand Maiden Sea Silk. In an unprecedented display of self discipline, I somehow managed to walk away without purchasing any. I really can't think about another lace project until I finish the Albatross (I mean Alpine) Shawl.



Since Dave was with me, I didn't spend a lot of time photographing yarn and getting business cards from many of the booths. However, I couldn't resist photographing the Knitting Notions booth. I wish my photos showed the true colors of their yarn. (The sunlight coming through the yellow tent gave everything a yellow cast which didn't help, but I'm not about to complain about the sunshine.)




Knitting Notions also had these really neat handmade swifts for sale.

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. I did a fair of amount of knitting, but I'll tell you about that tomorrow.