I wanted to just scoop up all the yarn I saw. I forced myself to put everything down and do a quick walk through of the festival. I collected business cards and made some notes about what I was interested in. I made several passes through the tents and two pavilion buildings. As I passed this tent these guys came out. I started stocking up on fiber. (Details of fiber booty will come in a later post). I took a break to go through the stables. I took lots of pictures of cute animals but most of them are terrible because a)It's dark in the barn. b)The animals really don't pose well. c) They are in pens and cages which means lots of bars. d) I generally take lousy photos. But here's the best I have to offer. A sheep who needs shearing. I could barely see her eyes. A Jacob sheep(they have four horns!). An adorable llama for sale with the bushiest eyebrows. A mohair goat.
Then outside the barn I saw this recently shorn llama being taken for a stroll. I stopped to look at this enormous angora rabbit. As I looked at it people kept walking by, stopping, staring and finally proclaiming, "it's a rabbit!" It was pretty hard to make out any features, there was just a little pink twitching nose under all that fur. The llama that had been out strolling came by to check it out for himself.
At 11:00 they opened the viewing of all the fleeces from the various competitions before they went on sale at noon. I knew I wasn't going to be buying any raw fleeces but it was very informative to read all the judges comments on each fleece and get a chance to look at them and touch them myself.
In the afternoon a woman set up a demonstration of "Spinning from the Bunny." She just plucked the fiber off of her bunny and spun it. I've seen pictures of this before but it was very cute to watch.
When I finally started to wind down I realized that I had been walking around for five hours without pausing to eat, rest or go to the bathroom. It was time to head home. More tomorrow.
