On Friday night, Kevin said, “This weekend is like your Christmas, I want you to enjoy it.” He was right, and I sure did. My weekend of fiber joy actually started on Thursday and then cruised right on through Sunday. I knit a lot, saw a lot, bought a lot, and planned a lot. I hope you’ve got a minute, this could be a long one.

Things started off on Thursday with the release of the Fairyhill Shawl by Helen Stewart. I had been looking forward to it’s release since the announcement at the beginning of April. I’ve had my yarn picked out, made a bag for the project, and generally sighed wistfully in anticipation. Well, it certainly did not disappoint. It’s a gorgeous, sweet, lightly lacy shawl. I’ve gotten a good start on it and it honestly flies by, Helen’s patterns are written so well. I’m past this point now, but here it is at the 20% mark:

After work on Friday, I took off and drove up to Knot House Yarns in Frederick, Maryland. Now, I won’t go into great detail, but I work in College Park–putting Frederick about 60 miles away along the beltway in Friday afternoon traffic. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t quite a quick jaunt. It was, however, well worth it. The Knot House was packed with two things: people and yarn.

I met a lovely dyer, Carol of Swift Yarns, and fell in love with her colorways. Check her out, and if you’re on the East coast, even better–it seems she’s been hitting the road with events and trunk shows from Virginia to Pennsylvania. She is the sweetest thing and chatted and helped me pick out colors, even thought it was packed. I was in the mood for a few skeins of single ply yarn since I haven’t really knit with it before. She also had a very pretty cowl pattern she had written and was giving away. Carol was modeling it and it looked so nice! I thought a soft pink would make it a nice staple for me.

The other two skeins of Swift I bought for a two color shawl that she had a sample of (I know, sometimes I have my own ideas, but Carol’s were so good I didn’t have to!) called the Cupcake Shawl. 

Saturday morning I awoke to a text message from my little brother saying that he would be stopping in for the night. It was a welcome surprise and we scurried through the house to get the guest sheets done and clean the inexplicably messy kitchen. With all of that done and with Kevin’s blessing, I left–alone!–to go enjoy myself at Maryland Sheep and Wool. I toured all of the vendors and stopped in at a few. There were some lovely things there, really something for every fiber artist.

I had never stopped at the Jennie the Potter booth before, her stuff is precious! I loved her jewelry and stitch markers, but really wanted the tumbler. I had been seeing the pattern on instagram and those leaves and branches are just stunning. Things went rather sideways when I hit Marigoldjen, at one point I had 6ish full skeins and a ton of halfsies in my arms. After some serious conversations with myself, I settled on yarn to make three pairs of socks. Reasonable, right? My last purchase of the day was 4 skeins of O-Wool O-Wash Fingering in Watermill. I have gotten it into my head that I just have to knit a Waterlily top.

The color of this yarn seems so perfect to me. I think it will look good on my skin and it is soooo soft. I believe it will feel being swathed in a cloud. After that, I came home. Little brother arrived and we settled in for a lovely evening of tacos and catching up. We–finally–opened up some of last year’s salsa. It was a revelation! Need to make tons more this year.

Brother’s a mathematician and came armed with a question for us to work on: How many pizzas would you have to eat to raise the temperature of the oceans by 1 degree Celsius? With a lot of assumptions and even more laughter, we came up with an answer. Perhaps not a right answer, but an answer.

About 1 trillion pizzas, if you’re curious. And if you can convert pizza calories into pure thermal energy.

The next morning, the boys went on a long bike ride and I made breakfast. After sending little brother off with hugs, the kids and I headed back over to the fairgrounds for their day at the festival. We had a darned good time:

This big guy was spinning in front of the Homestead Hobbyest booth

So fluffy!

At one point, the kids got lunch, but I wanted a lamb burger–from another, much longer line. We decided that they would eat and then we’d run into the main barn to look at the felted animals and then I could grab food and eat while we walked back to the car. Well, that was all well and good until I ran across Backyard Fiberworks. I opted to forgo lunch and buy yarn instead.  I regret nothing:

I hit the local brewery stand on the way out for a treat for Kevin and I. All in all, it was one of the loveliest weekends I’ve had in awhile. My only problem is I want to knit my Fairyhill all the time, but I simultaneously want to cast on all the things. Ah the eternal, conundrum. Monogamy or startitis?

YoM day 123: Sock knitting

YoM day 124-127: Shawl knitting

YoM day 128: Sock knitting

Happy making!