All wool all the time

Or so I like to pretend. But I actually have a dark past. As the craft pirate already mentioned, we had a yarn swap at our last knitting group meeting, and it was there that my dirty little secret came out.

For the swap, I really tried to strike a balance between unloading some crap (because, um, one woman's trash is another woman's treasure) and finding nice yarn a deserving home.

With that in mind, I parted with some Soy Wool Stripes and a skein of Malabrigo that I loved but knew I would never, ever knit up (wrong colors), as well as a few solo skeins of Lamb's Pride in colors I just didn't love. They've all gone to good homes with knitters who will appreciate them.

It's possible I also balanced out the good stuff with a rather larger cache of, ahem, fun fur than I usually admit to owning. While I firmly believe that there's no such thing as horrible yarn, some of this stuff came pretty damn close.

Fun fur was my gateway yarn. Let us never speak of it again.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Valerie, of Knitting in Pink, that night. She was working on an Hourglass Sweater in the exact Classic Elite Skye Tweed I bought at Webs. That yarn knits up really, really pretty. And since I own the yarn, I totally felt pleased and proud of her Hourglass, just as if I had knit it myself.

Besides having exceptionally good taste in sweater yarn, Valerie is also one of the yarn pushers proprietresses of Yarn4Socks. You might not want to visit if you are at all weak-willed. There are sales. You've been warned.

The lovely ladies of my knitting group also joined forces to buy irresponsible amounts of yarn at visit the Gore Place Sheepshearing festival yesterday.

My friend Megan (of the dainty feet), who will become a Knitter if it kills me, joined us, despite the fact that she thinks she doesn't "really" knit.



Don't you just want to roll her up in a ball and carry her around in your pocket like a really nice bit of alpaca?

She did have some stiff competition in the cuteness department, though, what with these guys:



And this handsome fellow:



And, well, a whole bunch of these:



And, most adorably, these:



And where there's that many fiber animals, there's a whole lotta fiber, too.(Still-Blogless) Jessica, the aforementioned Pirate, the Daft Crafter and Megan were clearly feeling the fiber love (those bags? Full of fiber), as well as enjoying one of the other perks of festival-going: the food.



In the least obscene way possible, I do enjoy a big sausage now and then. I also scored a sweater's worth of tweedy purple yarn that was sheared, spun and dyed by New England farmers, and a really gorgeous skein of Lucy's merino-tencel sock yarn in a variegated purple and green.

You'll have to wait a few days for pictures of all the loot. Megan is currently in possession of all of my festival yarn. I am working on not being nervous about this.

Thanks ladies, for such a great afternoon!