Maryland Sheep & Bankruptcy Festival

[neadods]

No Sunday 7 - although, as I did spend Friday and Saturday getting the air conditioner blessed for the season, paying my bills, giving the house its monthly scrubdown, finishing a review book, clearing a shelf of clutter in the living room by putting the contents slightly more neatly in the basement, and reorganizing my CDs (uncoincidentally finding two missing ones), I think I've accomplished a fair deal of work.

Which is good, because I spent today at the Maryland Sheep and Bankruptcy Festival. faireraven, I'm sorry I missed the Ravelry gathering, but at 1:00 I was at the other end of the fair finally getting something desperately needed to eat and drink and just sit down!

There were snoozing bunnies and sheep of every make and model, and darling alpacas, and even a sheepdog demonstration, but this is *me* you're reading, so you're mostly going to hear about the shopping. First stop was the SCA-sponsored medieval and Renaissance textiles tent. It was very comprehensive, covering embroidery, card weaving (with real chopped-up playing cards, to my amusement), and bobbin lace. There was someone with a hands-on project, which M tried her hand at. I watched her, and I was impressed by the very reasonably-priced bobbin lace kit... but what I walked away with were six titles in the Feudal Gourmet booklet series.

Then it was pretty much just windowshopping up to Misty Mountain Farm where I drooled all over the handpainted linen and the soft and gorgeous pima cotton (links included so I can find them later when I can afford to buy the yarns) but I stuck to only buying some of the ebony-and-pearl needles and a couple of crochet hooks, which had the deepest notches I've seen. They have some free patterns online. They were also teamed in the booth with My Essential Fragrances, one of the billions of soap dealers; I picked up a couple of bars of Ginger Lemongrass.

I picked up other odds and ends here and there - a DVD on sockmaking (I taught myself to knit from quicktime movies on the Internet; I think I can teach myself socks from this); a pattern for a short-sleeved sweater knit side-to-side (sorry, no online link); a pattern for reversible cables (I'm not sure I actually understand the project instructions, but the cable instructions are given separately and they're clear and interesting and will probably be a future afghan... or I'll just bullshit my way through adapt the pattern a bit); a booklet on nalbinding edgings; and a ridiculously cute needlefelting kit for making cat toys ladybugs. (Oooo, look, a YouTube tutorial!)

I was just congratulating myself on a fairly restrained day as I hit the main exhibit shed and rediscovered Golding Precision Fiber Tools. Now, even then I felt proof against his stunning artistry and craftsmanship - having previously purchased the most beautiful lucet in the world (at least, the most beautiful until the SCA showed up with laser-cut ones with pictures of dragons and castles) from him, what else was there? After all, the spindles and spinning wheels and looms, however stunning, weren't my thing, and his knitting needles are surprisingly bland and boring. What else could there be for a knitter?

Oh, my God!

(For the purposes of comparison, This is what a regular ball winder looks like, and this is what a precision wooden ball winder looks like (and costs).)

Yes, I know! But this isn't one of those decisions that you defend with logic, although I do have reasons. It's one of those "at this moment I can do this, and I want this thing in my life enough to sacrifice whatever it takes" decisions.

You know the line about keeping nothing in your life except that which you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful? Life is good when something useful is also beautiful.

I tell ya, though, Golding seriously owes me an advertising kickback. Having come to the sticking point, I preferred to schlep it rather than leave it behind. So at least five people came up to talk to me about it, and headed off in his direction at high speed!

*waves to the Ravelry people I met*

Comments

[museclio]

For what it's worth, one of hte bobbin lacers is a good friend of mine. I can put you in touch.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I may take you up on that someday.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Apparently LLT was talking to M (and trying to figure out where she knew her from, *giggle*) when M said something to her about "Wow, that looks like something Cyd would do." That's when LLT figured out where she knew M from, but by then, M had walked away...

I'm highly amused, as LLT related the story to me later when I spoke to her and Orlacarey...

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

You bought one of the Golding Ring ballwinders? !!!!!

I mean, they are GORGEOUS, but for that price you could buy a pound of quivut yarn!

[Says the person who covets his spinning wheels -- which start at $3000 and only go up...]

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I could have bought a great deal - but I've been getting more and more dissatisfied with my original skeinwinder, and this one is not only the most beautiful I've seen, but the most powerful. The one with "Swiss gears" only claims to go up to 1 lb balls - Golding told me that he's advertising 2 lbs, but has wound up to 3.

Add that to not being plastic, not having to be reassembled every use, being quite strong, and being gorgeous and it's funny how I keep talking about iPhones and Magellans, but getting that.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

I was playing with it at their booth (I wound up purchasing one of their silk drop-spindles, 2" purpleheart with the cutouts)... OMG I almost fell over with the absolute fluidity of it... The guy said it's balanced to within several micrograms...

*DROOL*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

He's an engineer of the highest caliber, and it's smooth as silk. You're welcome to bring a skein or two some night!

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Oh, if I could have afford it, I would have seriously considered it. The man is a museum-quality carver, after all. I do have a lucet and a spindle from him, and I covet his big pieces (the Swan Lake loom, and the dancing ballerinas chair).

Seeing as how I just bought a half-pound skein to make sanj an Icarus shawl (serious, it's a gorgeous orchid color, and up on my Ravelry stash), I need a high capacity ball winder. Or I'm going to be using my notespinne for a loooong time.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Tangled Skein says they're getting the one with the swiss gears, but I can't help but think they'd get more attention if they got a Golding and let rumor spread! (They'd probably have to bolt it to the table to keep it from disappearing, though.)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Oh man, did I want that winder... But Joe would have had my hide, considering I've put him on a DVD/CD diet...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm still thinking of throwing a little knitting party at my place, so you can use mine. Just wipe off the drool when you're done.

[hildy.livejournal.com]

*giggles* I had two friends who regularly went to that show and Maryland Sheep & Bankruptcy is a much better name for it. They always cooed over the alpacas mostly. And then talked about their new spindles or fancy toys along with the yarn. I would have been in trouble in the SCA/Medieval tent, staring at the embroidery mostly. Obvious me? *grins*

One had a knitting gadget where you could put the ball of yarn on one arm so you didn't have to carry it around. Or maybe it was for winding/spinning. Don't remember now. Damned if I can remember what it was actually called.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I know the thing you're talking about, but I can't remember its name either.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

You mean like this?

http://carolinahomespun.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CH&Product_Code=YKB&Category_Code=KS

Yeah, I saw that one today... At that same store, actually. :)

[hildy.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's the one.

Thanks. I could visualize it, but I couldn't remember what it was called.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

I couldn't remember either. I just went to the place I knew I'd seen it at. :)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I actually managed to miss out on seeing every single bunny in the place? Not a one! And surprisingly enough, despite the fact that the Ravelry meetup was at the rabbit building, there were no rabbits.

Pooh!

I want an angora now... So I can spin right off of it. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I only saw one stack of hutches, and M saw them first. I remember seeing someone spinning right off one, and was very impressed that it sat still for it!

[fyrdrakken]

It's like petting a cat -- a rabbit being groomed is happy to just crouch there and let you go through its fur for quite some time. I imagine even longer if they're so used to it.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Depends upon the bunny. Sarah (pictured) does NOT appreciate grooming. AT ALL. She'll thump and try to get away from you... She'd rather be shaggy, strangely enough.

BOY did she get pissed the last time I plucked another rabbit out of her during a huge molt...

Spunky never had an issue with it, Trixie would put up with it for a while and then get pissy, Beemer's never really molted enough to look shaggy for some reason, but Sarah just despises it...

[fyrdrakken]

I must bow to your greater experience with rabbitkind. Marvin doesn't have a problem with it (but doesn't shed enough to need more than a few passes with a brush every few days, and I haven't had him long enough for him to have molted yet), while Trixie loves grooming to the point of chasing after me nuzzling for more when I'm done with her.

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Your Trixie and my Trixie are two totally different beasts!

Trixie was what I referred to as "my curmudgeon of a pissybun"... I swear she acted like a cranky old man! She would bite almost anyone and anything who came near her... I was one of the few people she wouldn't bite, but then again, she grew up in a dog store... She would growl before she bit! I learned to interpret her moods and respond accordingly. :)

On the other hand, Spunky was an absolute lover, adoring it when you rubbed the fur between his eyes, earning him the nickname of "spoonhead" because he would then look like a little cardassian bunny... But I had to be careful to not overgroom him, because I'd accidentally groomed him bald in patches, once! His fur came out far easier than anyone else's, so he'd get these little bald patches when groomed... So I took it easy on him.

Sarah, while usually afraid of everyone, is not afraid to let me know she doesn't like being groomed! But she's always been a solitary bunny...

And Beemer was a rescue who came from an overcrowded food farm... The owner had 45 rabbits in a 15'x4' pen, living in about 4" of their own excrement! While he's always happy (and greedy) to get papaya tablets and food, he's not so much on the petting thing... His ears still show signs of former litter-mates having chewed the hell out of him, so I can understand why he'd be less than thrilled about the idea of being groomed... Although he's perfectly content to be scritched when he's being fed. :) Since he's never been much of a molter, I've never been inclined to brush the extra bunnies out of him, especially since he doesn't take well to petting to begin with.

Yeah, I have two bunnies in my house now (and at one point four), but they are/were all rescues of one kind or another, so I've always had rabbits with mental issues... :) Most of my bunnies have been ones nobody else wanted, so I took them home. This tends to result in more neurosis than are generally found in rabbits... :)

[fyrdrakken]

Trixie was somewhat neglected by my sister, who hadn't done any research on rabbits when she brought home a baby bunny and popped it into the cage with the grown rabbit she already had -- she was astonished when Boo-Boo tried to kill little Mookie and wound up having to keep her in a bitsy separate cage. When my sister moved back in after breaking up with that boyfriend, they separated custody of the rabbits, and she brought Mookie -- and left her when she moved in with her next guy a few months later. I wound up taking over her care, doing some bloody research, and getting her spayed, and Mom renamed her Trixie Belle. Over the course of the two years she's been in our house, she's gotten much friendlier, but she's still a very wary bunny. (Though inquisitive, loves being petted, and has learned to tolerate having me hold her.)

Marvin OTOH I got from the local rabbit sanctuary, where he'd apparently been very very popular with the local volunteers and well-handled. He comes right up to people, loves being petted, but between the number of times I was picking him up to put him in a small space with a nervous nippy Trixie and then the five days I spent putting drops in his eyes three times a day after he scratched a cornea... He does not like being picked up and held, which saddens me since I was told that he used to be really placid about it -- his name at the sanctuary was Trance. Still, he and Trixie bonded quickly and she's learned from his example -- now I walk into the living room and both bunnies charge my ankles for petting.

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

How the HECK did I miss the Golding booth? Or the two of you, even? Gah! We were there too!

[maureen-the-mad.livejournal.com]

Yes, how could you possibly miss seeing two people amongst the very few people who were there Sunday? ;-) Now I'm really sorry we missed the Ravelry gathering, but we were in SERIOUS need of a sit-down by that point, and we were at the opposite end of the grounds from the meet-up place.

I'm very amused that Orla and Tirza didn't recognize me! It's that "out of context" thing, and I do it all the time myself. Take someone out of garb, and suddenly they're a different person... :-)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Bingo! :)

As soon as you mentioned my name, she had it figured out... But out of garb, it's out of context... :)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

You missed the Golding booth because you literally left only seconds before we would have walked by it... ;)

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it was across the aisle from Journey Wheel... Which was the place you left me at. Sorry! If we hadn't crossed the main barn when we were walking through it, we might have caught it...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That is not a booth you want to miss!

Both times I've been there, he's been in the main exhibit shed, the biggest one at the end.

[fyrdrakken]

This year being a foreign-travel year, next year is going to be a congoing year again. And I'm thinking I'm really going to have to make it to one of these big knitter cons. Maybe Rhinebeck?

And that's a magnificent ballwinder. Costs a bit, but if you do it often enough I expect you get your money's worth eventually. (Especially since the little cheap plastic kind are wobbly and I'm told they don't last too long. I coddle mine and hope it doesn't break too soon, but I know it's not the most well-engineered solution...)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The original Captain Jack did not, despite boasts, ball anything. When the gears were slipping as I wound from a ball on the floor to a center-pull skein, I knew this relationship was not going to be long for the world.

And Golding isn't kidding about the "precision" part of the description. Winds like a dream, and you can't hear any noise at all.