Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival 2010

Trtlgrl and I were up ridiculously early, for us. We tried waiting for Gail, but her GPS was out of date and didn't know that our feeder street had been reconstructed from the main road, so she wasn't finding where to turn. This meant that we were later than we had planned to arrive in Canby. So we left everything heavy in the car and walked into the fairgrounds. Rachel headed to the Registration line to check into her Goat Cheese Making class and I met up with some of the PDX-Knit-Blogger/Portland Spinnerati ladies who had already arrived.

Since it was almost 9am, I dropped off my stuff with Duffy and headed in to see if Blue Moon Fiber Arts had their sale bins like last year. I looked through their area carefully and no bins were found. Then took Susan her samples and received my payment from her. She was very excited to receive them. ;-) So back out to start getting things setup.

Estonian Lace Wrist Warmers, Madrid Wrist Warmers, and Winter Twilight Mitts

Nadine came back to the car with me and we brought back the canopy and chairs. Cindy had loaned her canopy (I picked it up Friday morning). I dropped the canopy off then went back for the rest of the stuff, my chair and lunch.

This worked out well, because by the time I got back both canopies were set up and tarps down and just had to make a suggestion on which canopy sheets were hung from. Set up my folding chair with the help of Michelle's DH (he'd also pointed out the sheet problem, I just voiced it.) Sat down to let my muscles stop screaming from the overload I'd put them under and say hi to people.

Then it was off to take a look at some booths. I don't think I really went around to all of the booths, this was a safety measure on my part since I was really, really trying not to buy anything. I even had told Klaus that I wasn't going to be buying anything from him this year. I think it was an hour and a half later I was eating my words. Spinning friend Pam had told me about his great deal on Targhee. I had wanted to spin this for a long time and getting some at Klaus's great prices only made sense, and I had already checked that Woodland Woolworks didn't have any on hand.

From there it was a slightly slippery slope. A skein from Upstream Alpacas booth, but not dyed by her came home. Some additional chinese cashmere, and a pretty braid from Knitted Wit found their way into my bag. There was also the bag of goodies from the Knitmore Girls they were handing out in the Abstract Fiber booth.
Collage of the goodies:

Lots of friends were seen and talked to, and not everyone got the picture taken, sadly. We had Melissa back visiting from her move to the desert known as the Tri-Cities. Local knit designers and dyers that were seen in and out of booths. People helped out with learning new skills in the booth and friends remembering the joy of spinning on their 'Delights', and food enjoyed:

Then there was the trip to the barn to see the 'flock' portion of the event. Seeing the alpacas, llamas, variety of sheep and goats. Watching the Navajo-Churros be judged. I have some films of that because I found it pretty darn hilarious that these horned sheep were pretty woosy about the whole judging event. Saw one flop over on the way to the ring - no don't want to go, you can't make me! Then was shown that yes, you will as he was picked up and carried in. After watching the judging where the first thing the judge does is reach under the dangling fleece and grope up their testicles, I guess it was a lucky thing for the sheep that it was warm out and the guy's hand should have at least been warm! ;-) Told that story to a pygora breeder, I think Marcella of Weldon's Merry Menagier, and she was jumping into the pen with her goats trying to feel them up because another friend had mentioned that she might have missed one of the teste on a goat when she was castrating. The things you can learn in the barn! ;-)

Rachel and I headed home after the 5pm booth closing. There was a Starbuck stop to help Rachel stay awake for the drive. Rachel plans to go back and a some other friends. I had planned to get some yardwork done, but the rain has foiled that plan. We do have a birthday dinner for the niece who shares the same birthday as Norbert. They both turn nine today. Happy Birthday Keisha and Norbert!