Sheeps and WIPs

(Read, please, "sheeps and weeps".)

Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair
So much fun!

I had never been to a fiber festival before, so I batted my eyes at Adam and we drove out to Cummington with our trusty GPS. The weather was fabulous, and we enjoyed walking around and seeing all the yarn and fiber and petting the sheep.

There were some baby angora bunnies for sale, and I got to pick one up and hug it -- they're so soft and cuddly. They're also a lot more relaxed about being around people than our princess is, which is probably because they have to get used to being held so they can be plucked. I think it would be absolutely awesome to have an angora of our own, but Adam thinks the fur everywhere would be a nightmare. (Our rabbit, Miss Abigail, is a mini rex, so she doesn't have the long outer hairs that make for a good angora, but she is fairly hypoallergenic.)

I bought a super-soft alpaca yarn for a sweater from one of the booths, but I suck at estimating how much I need for different projects, so I realized when I got home that I won't have enough -- I have 650 yards, and for a full-size sweater I'll probably need about 1000. I'm trying to decide if I want to a) email the yarn source to see if they'll sell me another skein or two; b) buy a skein of alpaca yarn from another supplier and make a striped sweater; c) make a cropped sweater and/or one with short sleeves. Decisions, decisions!

On the way home, we stopped at Webs in Northampton, which did not disappoint in terms of size and selection. I got a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy, which I'd never actually seen in person before.

Poor Adam was a little sick of yarn by the end of the day. He's such a good husband.

Millefiori cardigan
I'm probably half-done with the back of the sweater, and I really like it. I found the clam stitch section incredibly difficult, but now that it's done I love the look of it. I hadn't swatched it (bad knitter), so I put in a lifeline and read the directions... and was like, "You have to be kidding me." I held my breath and did the whole repeat, and it looked horrendous, so I frogged it, cursing under my breath the whole time. But somehow, when I did it over, I got the hang of it. I love that about knitting -- eventually things just click and some bizarre set of directions produces a gorgeous result.