Sheep and Yarn and Alpaca and SNOW?

I spent Mother's Day at the NH Sheep & Wool fesitval with Joanne and a couple of blogless girls, Cheryl & Marlene. What an excellent day for fiber frolicing - the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold!

While none of us were looking for spinning related items, we did happen upon some beautiful wheels, including this beauty (click for a 2nd view)...

Look at that wood work... and the matching chair too boot! The pictures hardly do it justice.

Of course there was a lot of other stuff to buy... including yarn! I had gone with the attitude that if it wasn't something I really loved or unusual, I wasn't going to buy it... I'm at the point where my credit card company could see a $1000 yarn store purchase in Hong Kong and never question if the charge was legit or not in my stash where I don't need to just buy yarn for the sake of buying yarn. So I ended up walking away with just 3 skeins...

From left to right, that is a 3.5 ounce skein of hand painted alapca from Sallie's Fen Alpacas... a skein of Seacoast Handpainted Llama/Wool in the colorway Colorado and... a skein of Seacoast Handpainted Mohair/Wool in the colorway Pink Patch. Both of the Seacoast yarns were marked down to a steal and the alpaca was just one of those that I couldn't leave behind! I'm not totally sure what they are destined for just yet... possibly mitts for me, maybe a baby something with the pink patch... maybe a Calorimetry, although I just received my Spring Coffee Swap package and my awesome pal Criquette made one for me .... its gorgeous, but after a quick try on in the office bathroom, sadly its too large... BUT, that got me to searching on Ravelry for input on the sizing (seems its too wide for most everyone - you'd think by now they'd have publised a revision!) and it looks like less stitches, less repeats and maybe even smaller needles are the way to go...

My only other purchases for the day were a delicious buffalo cheese steak and some apple crisp... and this sweater pattern...

Both Joanne & I were ooohing and ahhing over the sample and then realized the vendor was wearing another version. Its gorgeous... and the only sewing in the entire thing are the buttons!

Now I'll leave you with a montage of cutesy animal photos because you know there were plenty...

This is the sheep impression of my Lola & Sophie...

There were lots of cute sheep...

There were sleeping sheep... and smiling sheep...

There were fluffy alpaca...

And alpaca with cute hair cuts...

Curious alpaca...

and the cutest little angora goats!

There was even this...

Yes, you non-New Englanders... that is left over snow!!!!!!!!

Oh and as for the coffee swap package, I picked it up on my way to work and did bring it inside for fear of meltable goodies inside (I was right!) and snapped a quick camera phone pick before tearing in to the beautifully wrapped goodies... I'll post more about the package & real pics tomorrow!