Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival was loads more fun this year than last. The secret was using my Blackberry. No really! I put in reminders for all the stuff I wanted to see (shearing demo, sheep show, sheep dogs, etc.) so they wouldn't be missed. And I put a list in it with all the stuff I wanted to look for. It was a total success. Well, nearly total. Close enough. There were a couple things I didn't see- perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough. I missed purse handles and Kauni, but that was it.

I got there early, at about 7:30. Walked around a bit and made note of a few vendors' locations, and saw the sheep getting cleaned up for the Sheep Show. Around 8, I wandered over to see said show, but only stuck around for 15 min. or so. Judging sheep isn't very exciting to watch, at least not when your other option is finding yarn. I walked around some more, and tried to locate some of the key booths I wanted to see. By 8:30, some of the vendors were open for business. I scoped out Jennie the Potter's booth, and bought a button (which is now doing an excellent job of keeping my shawl on my shoulders).

While perusing the Main Exhibition Hall, I made the deadly, deadly mistake of test driving some Signature Needles. They are AWESOME. I walked away with two sets of size 1 DPNs. I'm so starting a pair of socks when this blog is done.

In one the barns, a local artist, Alyson Jentz, had some great prints. I've got a thing for elephants, and decided this needed to come home with me:

I love her bats and owls, too.

Mostly there was a lot of walking a looking, and looking and walking. The rain seemed to keep some the crowds away, at least for a bit. Eventually, I bought some Malabrigo Lace and Sock at Uncommon Threads. Mmmmalabrigo... And afterwards walked straight across into the Creatively Dyed Yarn booth. The colors really caught my eye, and I wound up getting a whole bunch of solid-ish worsted for a stripey cardigan and couple sock yarns there.

At that point, I decided to unload and have a snack in the car. While doing so, the rain pretty much stopped, and people arrived in droves. Afterwards, I saw the sheep dogs do their thing- which was really interesting. Now I want a border collie.

When I went to look at yarn again, some of the barns were so packed I could barely squeeze through. Luckily, at the Autumn House Fiber Works booth, I got stuck right in front of these puppies:

Oh yeah. I've been wanting one of these since my recent episode with a sock project, and the first one I picked up was 5", just like the new 5" Signature Needles in my bag. It was fate.

Shortly afterwards, I ran into Cinnamon and Angela from the local knitting meet-up. We had a chat, and then it was off to buy more yarn. At Angela's suggestion, I visited the Cloverhill booth. There I picked up a couple skeins of sock yarn, but no Serendipitous Ewe- not for lack of trying. I looked, but didn't see it... I'm hoping she sold out (but it's also possible I'm blind). That's okay though, I'm pretty sure I know where I can find some more. :)

All in all, this is my yarn haul for the day:

Not too shabby. And I only exceeded my budget by 30%! I think I'm going to start saving for next year's Sheep and Wool right now.