MA S&W

The first day of what promises to be a superfun holiday weekend was spent at the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair. Audio entertainment for the ride was The Story of the World, Volume 1, The Ancients, read by our favorite storyteller, Jim Weiss. This recording is new to us and was both fantastic and annoying...but in a good way!...because we all kept having a-ha! moments and pausing the CD to talk about the connections we had just made. "So that's why...!"

Anyway, MA S&W was much like CT S&W - plenty to see and do, but not so much that it's overwhelming. We browsed the booths, then went back to buy some irresistible handpainted roving. Ran into some friends along the way, including Donna (and daughter Nicole) from Knit1Spin2. Jesse roamed on his own and chose to settle in with the weavers' demonstration.

Later, when I joined him there, he was showing the little guy next to him how to work the looms. I was talking to one of the women from the weavers' guild and said that we're still learning the basics of weaving. She said, "Oh, he knows exactly what he's doing and has given all the right answers!" So the weavers were kind of standing back and getting a kick out of watching him be a weaving mentor for the people who sat down on either side of him. When I asked him what happened where there was an errant strand traversing the surface of his weaving weftwise, he promptly replied that it was a "design element." That's my boy! ;-)

Eventually, we found some shade and empty chairs in a temporarily unused demo tent and hung out with our friends for a while, knitting and spinning and chatting. Leah received a purple felted pouch as a birthday gift from one of her friends. We discovered later that it exactly fits one small (sock size) ball of yarn, perfect for a mobile socknitter! Scott tried spinning on a Bosworth charkha and found it quite easy.

Even though we just happened to be hanging out, doing our thing, folks kept coming over to watch Scott and Leah spin. (Scott was working on the remainder of the merino/tencel yarn so I can finish my handspun cardigan. Leah was spinning the fiber she bought earlier in the way.) These young guys were very interested, so Scott gave them each a turn at his wheel. At one point I looked up and there were about 10 people gathered around this impromptu spinning demo. Scott loved every minute of it.

The scheduled knitting demo was well attended, so we moved our little party to the pavilion and bleachers off in the distance. Magic Hat beer has little sayings printed on the inside of their caps. The first one of the day for me yesterday said, "Always be kind to a creative mind." Will do. :-)

Some of our friends arrived at the shady pavilion with a new member of their furfamily, an agouti angora who was just a sweet and soft and cuddly as can be.

Scott and Jesse hitched a ride home with pals. Leah and I chatted some more with the oh so pleasant Leslie Wind, then headed off to Mamacate's blegger (blogger + kegger = blegger!), where we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening among all the spinning wheels and fiber and socks-in-progress and other projects and beer...and the delightful people who love these things. (There were many more bloggers and non-bloggers there, but these are a few I can remember off the top of my head.) We celebrated Lee Ann's 40th birthday, a new travel wheel, the birth of CeCe's first spindle-spun skein, and a new spinner trying out a wheel for the first time. We arrived home very tired but soooo excited to try some new techniques (jar dyeing and felt rugmaking, especially), looking forward to two more days of weekend romping!