From the shearing of the goats and sheep to the final product, this is the story of wool. My daughter and I went to our first shearing event several years ago and it was beyond interesting. The way the animals sort of zone out while they’re being sheard to the softness and warmth of the lanolin drenched wool fresh off the sheep and goats. The last picture is of sweater my daughter made.
The shearing…
Roving to yarn to dyed yarn to sweater…
I like the way these two drawings of hands knitting are actually connected by a knitted piece.
As I mentioned a few posts ago every Saturday my daughter Deb and I, often accompanied by her best friend Dawn, go out for coffee and whatever else occurs. This past Saturday was chock full.
First up is coffee… almost always the first stop. We were in the charming town of Summit, New Jersey and stopped in at Boxwood Coffee which I have to say was a great choice.
Second up was Record Store Saturday. We hadn’t had plans to seek out a record store but lo and behold there was one right around the corner so of course we checked it out…
Third up was the main reason for the outing… The New Jersey Wool Walk. You may be wondering what a wool walk is, here’s the description from the website… ”The New Jersey Wool Walk is an event to give passionate knitters, crocheters and fiber artists the opportunity to visit, experience and enjoy the wide array of yarn shops throughout Central, South and North Jersey. Our diverse stores have a variety of yarns, notions, classes and styles. The Wool Walk is a four day festive happening that is not a sale, but an adventure for all lovers of yarn and what it can become!”
The girls had visited several yarn shops the day before and did a few more when I joined them on Saturday. Here are a few pictures from Summit. Look at those happy faces with their bags of stash.
As if that wasn’t a full enough day there’s still one more event to go,
Fourth up is for me, the main event…. ELVIS is in the building 🙂
My life long friend and I are also life long fans of Elvis and so when the opportunity arose to see this Elvis impersonator we jumped at the chance. I wish I could remember his name because he was fabulous… looked, sang, sounded just like The King himself. It was quite the climax to a full day.
My friend got a scarf and a kiss from Elvis… me, I got to take the picture…
There’s a lot of pressure on next Saturday if it wants to be as exciting and fun as the past two were.
… otherwise known in knitting and spinning circles as ‘Rhinebeck’ (no pun intended)
Saturday, Oct 18…7:30 sunrise…
9:30 a.m. arrival at Rhinebeck… already a jagillion cars there…
and people…
even though it was mostly cloudy and even spritzed a few times the foliage as usual was beautiful…
these friendly looking folk caught my eye…
they were in front of the museum which I had never been in … the exhibits included old milk wagons, baby carriages, wash tubs, and a man making caned seats…
there’s more to the sheep and wool festival than livestock and yarn…there’s a lot of other things to be looked at, admired and coveted.. for years I denied myself the small, orange, felted pumpkins… and then 2 years ago I got one… and then last year another one… and this year a third one….
but they’re not the only thing I had my eye on… there were these baskets too… my daughter had one, friends had them, almost every third person walking around Rhinebeck had them… they were great to put stashes of wool in, or food, or a small animal even… so this year my first stop… after coffee… was a basket…
here’s my treasures from 2014 Rhinebeck.. 🙂
the sky on the way home at 4:30 was just as beautiful as the morning sky was…
MV Obsession 