Get ready!

If you were overwhelmed by the New Englandy-ness of my last post, you better look away, because my mom and I just went on a wool arts tour of New Hampshire. The Blimp, which has followed me from Holland, smiled upon the fibersy-ness of our trip.
My mom and I have a great deal of free floating anxiety about the upcoming election and we talked about it non stop on the trip up. Our fears were immediately vanquished at the first stop on the wool tour. The Wool Room at Meadow Brook was built in the seventeen-dipity doos, and was just scenic beyond belief.

I think my favorite stop was at the Chauncey Farm. Ellen Dumas told us all about getting into sheep farming (something Mom and I have been really interested in, ever since I heard about the mill in Mora, New Mexico) and introduced us to her sheep. One of her sheep, Cappuccino, got sheered while I was there. I've never actually seen a sheep shearing before, having always been frantically busy with school every time there was a sheep and wool festival in Maryland. When in the special shearing position, sheepies go from being freaked out and running around and stressed to limp and funny looking. Cappuccino looked like a big, disgruntled wooly teddy bear. It was really cool to touch all the wool that came off of her. The lanolin was really nice on our hands, surprisingly! I bought some of the most beautiful, soft gray yarn from Ellen. It has some Cappuccino in it!

Some other highlights included a spinning lesson for me and Mom- Mom really wants to get a spinning wheel, I am still more interested in knitting. Though I am wanting other people to make me yarn.
There was this amazing woman, I think her name was Janet Sillars, doing old school spinning. It was so amazing to watch, mom and I were hypnotized for awhile. It looked like the wool was just coming out of her fingers.
Everything was a delicious color.
And the landscape was beautiful. I would say that New Hampshire does indeed deserve all those electoral votes.

Fibers Trip

I'm home with my mom, and we decided to do a little bit of local tourism. We drove up Cape, along scenic route 6A, which we usually avoid because of tourists. We're the only tourists now! We stopped at a local Unitarian church that was having a sale.
Mom bought a fabulous vintage mint green and white apron, and a beautiful table clothe with red roses.
Then it was on to the wool! The town of Dennis was having a local spinning/knitting/wool festival. We touched all of the fibers and talked to everyone about how they made their stuff.

Many of the people were dying their wool themselves with natural dyes, and getting the most beautiful colors. I bought some lovely pink yarn that had been dyed with cranberries.

Bunnies!