SAFF. . .

Was a blast!
Heather, Jamie and I got up at 4:30 in the morning, and left the house at 5:30 to get all the way across North Carolina to SAFF. We got there just as it opened for Saturday and headed on in. It was amazing. The wool fumes were overwhelming.

There were people spinning.

There was amazingly beautiful wool art.

. . . and Wheel art!

I successfully resisted buying a whole fleece. Mainly because I came to the philosophical realization that I'd rather spend that time spinning or knitting rather than washing and processing wool. It was rather tempting though, as there were fantastic fleeces available.

We also got out to see some of the livestock at the show, and the two cutest things we saw were a blonde alpaca. She kept saying "maah" at us

And a 4-day old pygmy goat. Apparently mama had triplets so the breeder/owner is hand raising the smallest one.

Since I'd been given a little "mad money" as well as having done pretty good at the Ren Faire the past couple of weekends, I got myself a tidy little pile of treats.

The basket was hand-made in New York, and fits on my back! I had fun sherpa-ing stuff for Jamie. I got some natural colored alpaca, in tri-color and chocolate, some irish flax because I've never spun flax before, and a show special mixture of alpaca and bombyx silk! There was a store having a buy 5 get the 6th free deal, so the navy and grey bumps of roving were from that. I can't remember the breed of wool it is (Heather, help!) but it's extremely soft. The black/white rectangle is a tool I've been wanting for a while, a spinner's control card which will help me spin with more purpose than just doing whatever the wool seems to want to do.

Oh, and those little round stones? Well, you'll just have to stay tuned to se what I'm doing with those!