The Home Economist: 05.11

Memorial Day Weekend

There are always so many fun parades and festivals going on during Memorial Day Weekend, and this year was no exception! This year I made it to the MA Sheep and Woolcraft Fair and the Paradise City Arts Festival in Northampton.

The Sheep and Woolcraft Fair had stall after stall of handspun and hand dyed yarns of every kind... all very tempting! There were also copious amounts of roving, or unspun fibers, for the spinners out there (of which I do not count myself). There were, of course, plenty of sheep. They even had good old fashioned sheep-dog competitions (but where was Babe?). My favorite fuzzy friends, though, were the angora rabbits, whose unbelievable fluffy and soft fur is shed for angora yarn. Gosh, they're cute!

Bunny!

Baaah!

Sheepdog Competition

The Paradise City Arts Festival isn't your usual craft fair (there were no dips or olive oils to sample here! boo!) but rather a surprising and large collection of truly fine and creative goods. Here you would see everything from lawn sculptures to handwoven silks to beautiful jewelry. I absolutely loved the jewelry by Ananda Khalsa (and would have bought some if I didn't have a self-imposed spending limit of $20!). I was smitten by Yardbirds, fun animal sculptures in all sizes made from recycled junkyard materials by Richard Kolb (of Louisville, KY!).

Giant Moose

Kitty

Not sure who created this dog, but I love it!

Pilgrimage to WEBS Annual Tent Sale!

This past weekend WEBS held its annual tent sale, and there was no way I'd miss that! Neither could any other knitter in New England, apparently! It was definitely crowded with lots of happy knitters and crocheters, and I saw more than a few great things I was tempted to load into my shopping bag!

First though, we stopped in town to get breakfast at Bruegger's Bagels (I had smoked salmon and cream cheese on a skinny bagel!), and I saw this knitted graffiti on a parking meter. It says "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL", with a little red heart underneath, which is very cute. This is the kind of graffiti we should see more of!

This is going to knit up really comfy!

At WEBS, I bought a bag of this pleasant light blue (kind of a cornflower blue) cotton yarn for only $2.60 per ball. I'm using it to make this tunic, which I'm calling the Morse Tunic because of the random lines and dashes in it made up of knits and purls, from Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel. It'll be a nice warmer-weather top.

For REAL do-it-yourselfers, these two cute Alpacas were on sale out front! I'm not sure I'll ever get into spinning my own yarn, but these two are adorable!

Pining for the Highlands

A friend of mine was recently in Scotland, and at my request, she found some nice local Shetland wool for me! I wanted to make something classically Scottish with my undyed cream-colored wool, so I chose a cabled beret. I couldn't bring myself to go all the way with a pompom on top like a traditional Tam O'Shanter; it's a little too much for me. The beret is very reminiscent of handmade Aran sweaters worn by fishermen in Scotland.