Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2006 - Part 1


***

Baaaaaaaaaa

***
I have to report on last weekend's MS&WF in small bites, as I have lots of pictures to share, and picture-heavy posts tend to take me a long time to organize. So this will be the first installment of three, possibly four episodes.

After driving North on Friday in the desperately-needed pouring rain, Melanie, Suzanne and myself stopped for dinner at Macaroni Grill in Columbia, (I love their "Carmela's Chicken Rigatoni"), before checking into our hotel to rest up for a big day.
.
Turns out, it's good to get to the fairgrounds as early as possible. I believe we arrived there right around 9 am when the place officially opened, and the first section of the field was already full-up with cars. Looks like a bunch of folks come reeeeeeeally early and just sit in their cars and knit until the gates open. Not a bad idea, actually....

Once inside, Suzanne had a mission to hit the Koigu booth in the Main Building and hit it hard, which she did with success. Can you find her in this melee? Neither can I.
***
I sweat just looking at the press of bodies in this tiny booth

Melanie found a booth selling several-thousand-yard hanks of cotton for dirt cheap, so as both ladies were shopping or waiting to pay for their purchases, I started to wander.
.
And look who I ran into?
***
L to R: Spirit Trail booth babes: Correct me, but I think (?) that's Amie , Queen Bess, Jennifer and Erica.

As I wandered in the main building, I took a few pictures of things that caught my eye, like:

Team knitting -- a family knits a poncho

***

Rover Dance marionette show

***

Some sheepy string lights -- not just for Easter!

***

Sheep masks - no need to buy one -- I can just borrow Jane's .. ;-)

***

Lovely hooked rugs

***

Later, we went back into daylight and found the booth I was most hoping to hit hard -- The Fold -- vendor for the highly coveted BMFA "Socks That Rock". When we got to their booth, this is what we found:

See all that sunlight coming through a rack where yarn should be? Here's Vanna, I mean, Suzanne, indicating the dearth of STR -- sold out by 10:30 am!

But I got my paws on a couple hanks! Score!

Sadly - neither of those hanks are for me, but I'm happy to get them to their designated recipients.

***

In other wanderings, I saw:

Mecca within mecca - but I resisted

***

An under-rated portion of the event -- the animals!


Hey - they even sell plants here!



Artist at work

***

Okay, that's enough for one post. Tomorrow -- the blogger meet-up!

***

4 comments:

Liz said...

Next year...I will make it MS&W.

Nice score with the STR...I have several skeins of it and I love it!

Krista said...

Glad to see your report on MS&W. I so wish I could have been there. Glad you were able to get the STR!

erica said...

It was nice to meet you. I'm the one in the Spirit Trail photo on the far right, RoseByAny's friend from Illinois.

I love reading everyone's accounts of MS&W. It was such a blast.

Anonymous said...

WOW, that looks like so much fun, I love those sheep lights!