Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The knitting field trip that almost wasn't

Sometimes I question why I still let myself receive newsletters and email updates from things I really don't need to see all the time.  I get all my personal and work emails on my phone, and 9 times out of 10 I open it, decide I really don't care enough to read it, and move on with my day.  Last week on Friday, this very thing nearly happened and would have caused me to miss a spur of the moment knitting field trip.  I got a Shall We Knit? email newsletter, and while I like the shop just fine, I've never taken a class there, and don't really need the regular newsletter updates.  I opened the email and scrolled down a weensy bit and had a mini heart attack when I read "fleece festival".  The Woodstock Fleece Festival was the very next day, and I had no idea.  Thank you Shall We Knit? for keeping me in the knitting know!  I will read your newsletters with gusto from now on.

I immediately sent a text message to Catherine hoping against all knitting hope that she wasn't scheduled to work on Saturday.  For once in my life, I didn't have anything (urgent) to do on Saturday, and I was all for it.  We scratched together a plan that didn't totally come together until 8:30 or so that night, and it meant only being at the show for not-quite 2 hours.  I accepted this challenge and went to sleep ready for sweet woolly dreams.

Our plan for the festival meant working around Catherine's inconsiderate work schedule for the day, which was created weeks in advance of us even knowing the festival was happening.  Considering I was on the planning committee for the KW Knitters' Fair, you'd think I would be up on the local knitting happs.  Catherine had to be at work, ready to roll for a full day of helping customers, at 11am.  The festival opened at 8:30am, and was only a 30 minute drive away.  I love when life-math adds up in your favour.


Welcome to the Woodstock Fleece Festival!  I love the friendly sign to let you know that the non-descript building next to the farmer's market was indeed full of yarn.

With such a short amount of time for shopping fun, we did a quick tour of the booths and then took a shopping breather at the barn with soft and fluffy animals.  There was also spinning equipment for sale, but with less than 24 hours notice about this festival's existence, I didn't come prepared to purchase the big stuff.


Hello bunny!  We couldn't stay for the angora rabbit grooming demos unfortunately, they were happening at 11, but it worked out for the best since I don't have a rabbit to groom.


It took me longer than I thought it would to find the head-end of this one for a picture. 


This is the friendliest little alpaca I've ever met.  This fellow had me researching my own alpaca hobby farm later that same weekend.  He made adorable whining noises and wanted to be petted, a lot like my dog.


So cute!  They even come with a built-in harness for adorable alpaca walks!


These four little bunnies were huddled together for warmth.  They shouldn't be allowed to put so many cute things all in one place.  Two of the angora rabbits were for sale.  I messaged Fuzzyhead while I was at the show to ask if I could buy one.  He said no.

Without having a real budget in mind, I kept to my budget and only spent about $100 at the show.  I bought a bright pink Namaste bag for Tam Tam for her birthday from the Needle Emporium.  The bags were on mega-sale - I paid $55 for the one I bought for Tam Tam, while I paid at least $80 for it online, plus shipping.  Her bag is exactly the same as the peacock blue one I purchased a few weeks ago, but it's bright pink.  She'll love it.

The only purchases for myself were two skeins of sock yarn from The Black Lamb.  One in "Mochachino" and one in "Olive Drab".  They were $15.99 each, and while I was looking for some deeply discounted show specials for sock yarn, that was a pretty good price.  My final purchase of the day before we wrapped it up at 10:15am (I know, right?) was a set of 2.25mm square double pointed needles.  I was so excited to try them out, I started my third real current WIP (Bad vrock, bad!  Finish your current projects before casting on more!).  This is the Viola Sock yarn I bought at the Knitters' Fair in SeaStorm, on my pretty new copper square needles:


Onward,

vrock


1 comment:

Catherine said...

It was pretty awesome and I enjoyed spending the day with you and my hard-earning money alongside you. Cheers to future random happenstances where we get to buy knitting stuff or knit together or whatever :)