Overall the trip went very smoothly. I budgeted to be able to buy some fleeces, since I had not brought any (or had room to bring any) home from Rhinebeck last fall but felt comfortable tackling more after washing up the cormo x rambouillet and the pound I bought from a Ravelry friend of her cormo.
Luckily I found other Sweeties basically as soon as we got inside - I hit up the fleece booth first thing and ended up right behind Jill from Hipstrings in line. I had to put down bags bigger than me and claim hugs right away of course.
My overall impression kind of continued from the first moment inside. Crowded. Uncomfortably so, it was almost panicked pushing kind of crowded. Someone else attending told me that they thought the crowds had outgrown the venue and I have to concur. I'm sure vendors did very well and people were in generally high spirits, but it felt hard to move and the kids did not enjoy not being able to see anything.
With that said though, Carl did decide to apply (with such limited space it will be interesting to see if he's accepted), we had a reasonably good time even with the kids losing their minds, and my goal of fleece procurement definitely happened. I bought a red ribbon winning cormo from Roclan's (Giselle), a black merino, and a "questionable" $7/lb rambouillet that looked good but really hid a ton of sandy gritty VM and a slew of very very short cuts. Lesson learned. I'd gotten the rambouillet to drum card into cloudy batts and didn't mind the overall short staple, but upon discovering the grit, am not willing to sacrifice my carder. Hand cards that will be.
The haul:
The fleece that will probably spoil me for every fleece to come:
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| Swoon worthy cormo from Roclan's giselle |
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| What has been hereby labeled as the "questionable rambo" |
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| Short stapled but ultra luxe (and fragile) black merino |
