Scarborough Fair (well, really NH Sheep & Wool)

Since I never got around to blogging this last weekend, here goes. NH Sheep & Wool Festival is Mother's Day Weekend every year, and every year I meet up with my friend Katie K and sometimes Candy W who was able to come this year. We get a chance to visit and to look at the great hand spun and hand dyed yarns and beautiful fleeces, batts and rovings. And invariably, whichever day I choose to go, it rains. Which is did this year. It rained like hell. Luckily I had a couple of purple umbrellas I had bought at Ocean State Job lots a couple weeks before, or I would have been soaked through. Note to self: You've been telling yourself to buy a windbreaker or rain coat since last October. Do it already.

Anyway, this year, Heather S, of Sereknity, who is one of the Manchvegas group, had a booth for her gorgeous hand dyed yarns and rovings. I love her stuff.

I don't know it was the rain or that some of the festivals were very close together this year, but some of the vendors I look for every year weren't there. And some of the vendors that I look for every year had very little in the way of fibers to sell. The rain was just a killer this year. Some of the vendors who were in tents on the fairground rather than in the buildings were having to dig little canals to channel the water around them. We mostly stuck to the buildings this year. It was really cold too.

I was fairly good, meaning I really didn't buy much, because it was too wet, I was too busy visiting with Katie K and Candy W, and I knew I was going to Webs the following weekend for the tent sale.

Here's Candy W looking resplendent in her beret and red coat. Candy is quite possibly one of the nicest women that it's ever been my luck to meet.

Here's Katie K talking to Robin Russo, of the Spinning Studio in Bradford, Vermont, who was giving a demo on how to reel silk from the cocoons of silk worms.

I also got to see Marci and Hal of the Elegant Ewe. Marci, if you enlarge the picture and look where the purple arrow is pointing is attempting to hide. Hal didn't hide but just threatened me with legal action for taking his picture afterwards.

This picture shows the yarns from Ellen's Half Pint Farm, which I lust after every year. Some day I'll be able to justfy a purchase to myself.

The 4 oz bit of batt shown is my sole purchase of the day. It was from a booth called Spin-A-Bit, and I liked the shiny fiber in the batt.

Around noontime we decided to call it good and go to lunch, which was great. It was really too bad that the weather was not more cooperative.

On Mother's Day, we decided to get up early and go grocery shopping before we needed to go to Shawn's parents. It's a good thing we left so early. Reading the labels for the whole milk thing took two and half hours. I expect it will get easier, just as reading the labels for Shawn's diabetes did, but geez. I can barely make myself grocery shop normally and this is not going to encourage me. I was able to find a pancake mix and a brownie mix without milk or milk derivatives in it, so that was good. Did you know that most bouillion has whey in it? Which means I can't use it. I was not a happy camper, but I did finally find something I can use. You wouldn't believe how much stuff we had to get rid of.

The visit with Shawn's parents went well and I think she really enjoyed her gift which was good. It was nice to see some of Shawn's family that we hadn't seen in a while too.

Stay tuned for news on the Webs trip.