Lambtown 2016: Stash Enhancement at the Festival

Happy Monday :)


I'm having a non-festival Stash Enhancement update tomorrow morning but, right now, I'm having the "I WENT TO LAMBTOWN AND ALL I GOT WAS ______" update.

So, Lambtown. It's a fiber festival (as in spinning) that takes place in Dixon, California, which is about 80 miles away from me and takes me about an hour and a half to get to. That's actually not that bad, considering that there are times when it takes me an hour to go from my house to Alameda or Fremont, both across the Bay from me. Anyway, it's a two-day event and there are all sorts of events like cooking demos and the dog trials and the sheep shearing contest, in addition to fiber judging, sheep to shawl, a Spinzilla warm-up, and a wool show.

I went on Saturday, by myself (NO CHILDREN) for many hours...okay, I left the house around 8:30am and got home at 3:30pm. The time alone was exciting enough.

I'll be honest: I went to the marketplace, ate some food, went back to the marketplace, visited the Alpacas, and that was about it. I saw lovely things, though.

First and foremostly, there was a shade tent set up pretty much right when you walk in and underneath:

Spinners & weavers. There were items laid out on tables and you could ask questions. One of the tables had a fiber touch basket. I also talked to a lovely woman who took a video of me telling her that Stormageddon, age 2, will let me spin with my wheel and doesn't think twice about it. He doesn't really go after the wheel, he likes to feel the fiber, and that's about it. As long as I make sure my wheel is properly put away, I don't have to worry about it. So, if that was you.......I doubt it but you never know.

I may or may not have fallen hard in the marketplace. I'll let you decide.

My first purchase was right inside the door. I found two matching bags of cleaned wool on sale. I paid less than $1/oz because I have about 6 oz and I only paid $5 total...I think that works out to about 83¢/oz. Since it's been cleaned, all I need to do is get the fibers in line and I can spin. I might make rolags or I might be sassy and just spin from the locks. We'll see what happens when I get that far.

Soon after, I picked up these two balls of fluff from Shaggy Bear Farms, who does not seem to have an online presence. Anyway, this is 8 oz (total) of Lincoln Longwool roving from a lovely sheep named Princess. This type of sheep is extremely rare. There are only about 5000 worldwide, most of them living in Britain, as they're native to that area. So, of course, I hopped on this. I could have gone for an off-white color, as well...but, grey won't show the dirt.

I had a difficult time in the FishKnits booth. She had three different Halloween themed self-stripe sock yarns...this is the one that came home. The colorway is Eye of Newt. She also had one (non-Halloween themed) called Goodbye Mr. Sheepsbutt, which is a reference to Despicable Me 2. That one almost came home. I may wind up emailing her to see if she still has one.

After that, I fell into Zombie Yarns and had a lovely chat with Lorna. If you're unfamiliar, the "Lorna" in this case is Lorna Miser who was the name behind Lorna's Laces. She sold the company by January 2003 and went to designing and teaching full-time. Buuuuuuut, once a dyer, always a dyer and she started dyeing yarn again in the fall of 2015. I caught glimpses of her at Stitches West this past February but I had a crabby Stormageddon by that point (even though he doesn't show it in this photo from Stitches West).

This time? This time I fell into the booth and I don't know what happened....okay, it wasn't that bad.

Project bag. Okay, I have a ton of those but this one called to me and said it wanted to come home. No big deal.

A skein of Eater, which is a finger weight merino/bamboo/nylon blend......and I only bought one. I should have bought two. So, I've contacted her and we'll see.

And a skein of Geek, which is a merino laceweight. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking of either. I blame fiber fumes. I don't knit with laceweight! But Lorna, ever the teacher, let me in on a little secret: Navajo Knitting (also called Chain-Ply Knitting). Basically, it turns laceweight into worsted and can help with color blending with highly variegated yarns. WOOHOO! Sooooo, I might be trying this because laceweight!

I took an accidental photo while I was in the Zombie Yarns booth. Oops. I was trying to get my phone to do something else and it had recently updated so things were still a bit wonky, hence unintended photo. 

Before lunch, I also managed to pick these up: 

These bowls are lovely. I have no idea what I'm going to use them for but they're beautiful and, bonus, Stormageddon and Little Man can't break them by dropping them. My ceramic yarn bowl is tucked away because it's, well, breakable. Duh. But these....Stormageddon has already tried to claim the smaller one as a yarmulke (and we're not Jewish). Sadly, Dolce Vita Fibers doesn't appear to have an online presence. She has some other lovely items including hand cranked socks (sock knitting machine) and bags made in the similar style as my bowls. 

I hit up the food vendors for lunch and had a quick corndog and a frozen mocha. Then I wandered off some more and came across some alpacas for petting. 

If we could have an alpaca or llama in the city, I would. I don't think Puppy would like it, though. Oh well. She's gorgeous. 

Two bars of goat milk soap from Shire Ranch Shoppe. They smell like appley goodness and I couldn't have just one. So, you know, I got two. Right now, they're sitting in the bowls in the photo up above, and it's making my room smell delicious. 

After that, I had to go back through the marketplace for a second round, to make sure I didn't forget anything. And, of course, I forgot things. 

These two skeins came from Houndstooth Fiber Arts, which is located just across the Bay from me (which is grand and lovely). These are both DK weight, superwash merino. Woo.

I also stopped by Wonderland Dyeworks and picked up some BFL braids:

Then these happened: 

I picked these up from Clemes & Clemes, Inc. Now, why in the world would I need Power Scour and Fiber Wash and Fiber Rinse?

Probably because I lost all control of my senses and these came home:

This is a reddish brown alpaca fleece that I picked up from Lassen View Alpacas. I picked it up for 50% off. They were doing a special every hour where they would pick something and put it out for half price. Th ladies said this color was difficult to sell because the red threw people off. I fell in love and it came home. It's almost 2 lbs (1 lb, 14 oz). I won't have to scour it all to hell because alpacas don't have the grease...but they're like toddlers: if there's a dirt pile, they're rolling around in it. So, this fleece is probably dirty but it's not greasy. 

I picked this up from the same woman that sold me the bowls. I have almost 4 lbs of this (3.7 lbs) and it's a light grey & white merino fleece. The photo isn't even close to the correct coloring. 

Have I mentioned that I've never washed or prepped fleece before?

Soooooo, there was my trip to Lambtown wherein I lost my ever-loving mind. There were plenty of other things goingon, as well, but this is what happened to me :) 

I hope you're having a lovely Monday :)