Of course I forgot to take the camera to the actual festival. Dur. I wish I had - there were so many things I would have liked to record. (Deep-fried Twinkie included.) Alas, I'll have to follow Kira's lead and use my imaginary camera.
I did have a really good time, even though I was disappointed. I brought $100 with me, thinking I'd have to make hard decisions, and only managed to force myself to spend $60. Here's the grand total of my purchases (not including the book, the finger puppet, or the twinkie):
(Go, on - guess which sock yarn's for whom - my husband, myself, my friend. If you said the one on the right is for Aaron, you win! The one in the middle's for me. And the one(s) on the left are for my friend. Yay, socks!)
I don't know if I'm picky or jaded or it really just wasn't my year. First off, I was looking for sock yarn particularly. Possibly I just failed my "spot sock yarn" check. (DC+10 for having a 3-year-old with me. And, this being the Internet, I promise that this is not the only blog to mix D&D metaphors with knitting.) I'd find these beautiful, luxurious yarns - in heavy worsted boucle. Or thick-and-thin plied with a glitter strand. All very lovely, but not anything I'd ever use. Georgous hand-painted colorways - in bulky mohair. And then I'd finally find some sock yarn, and it'd all be some weird olive/fuschia/mustard/turquoise combination, and just - yuck. And then I'd find stuff that was ok, but that was it - if I'm just getting "ok" yarn, I'm not driving an hour and a half for it and paying five times as much as Knitpicks. (Not that I'm against paying for quality - but that's just it, I wasn't impressed by the quality of most of what I managed to find.) Possibly I needed to get there earlier - maybe someone with a sockyarn fetish and the same taste as mine got there at 9 and bought it all up. No idea.
But although it sounds like I'm awfully whiny, I'm really glad I went. I had a great time. The kid had fun. Everyone was very nice, and we saw lots of neat stuff (like alpacas and llamas and goats, oh my!) I'm happy with the yarn I did get. And I picked up a few cards from shops whose yarn I liked but wasn't what I wanted right then, which I think was a good idea. I'm definitely going again next year, but I think with different expectations. And possibly another kid-wrangler along. (Really, she was great, but it would have been nice to do some shopping without having to navigate a stroller through the barns.)
In other news, I completely missed my self-imposed deadline to finish the blanket before the baby gets here. He's coming tomorrow. The blanket will be done... Wednesday, maybe? We'll see... Also I have to figure out what to do with the ends. But here you go, pictures of it "nearly" done. (I ought to call it the "Pi=2" shawl for the number of times I've miscalculated something about it. Also, I can't find that last ball of yarn and I'm going to Hulk out if I have to get yet ANOTHER one...)
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