S & C

G'day all!

Ah Friday. My day off! Oh blessed day off.

I had big plans to drive for 7 hours to a little place called Crookwell in New South Wales. They hold a fibre fair up there every year. Only I have so many fleeces I don't know what to do with them all. Well I do but I don't have time to spin them all, especially since my new wheel keeps popping its driveband partway out (I've emailed Majacraft for advice after googling and coming up blank on this problem), which makes it heavy to treadle - it was so light and easy and fast before it started this rotten little habit.

Then I found out that the Stitches and Craft fair was on this weekend. A 20 minute drive compared to a 7 hour drive... hmmm...

So I arranged to meet up with a fellow SnBer. I checked the online trip planner and worked out the latest train I could catch and still be reasonably on tme. I was ready in time. I started walking to the station.

As I walked, I heard suspicious noises. Noises that indicated a train was coming. It takes only four minutes to get to the station if I hurry. But I was early! It couldn't be my train! I was going to be at the station five minutes before the train came!

I was still a two minutes walk from the station when the train pulled in. DANG! The trip planner must be way wrong - dunno what time table it uses. Or the train was very late (it would not be very early - trains don't run very early).

So I trotted back home and got in the car and raced up to Caulfield, cussing most of the way cos I was in a hurry and when I am in a hurry, I am a stupid driver magnet. Does that happen to anyone else? Do you get stuck behind the person who suddenly decides that their car can no longer do the speed limit, but instead can only to 10 or 20 below it? Do you get the person who has been driving reasonably who suddenly gets distracted and pops into your lane for a visit, without indicating, whilst your car is occupying the same space? Or the person who pulls out dangerously in front of you, making you slam on the brakes, and then potters? The people who use confimrators instead of indicators (blinkers) - the blinker only flashes after they've changed lanes, often followed by heavy braking as they realise they wanted to turn at the previous road. The people who race past you and then slam on the anchors to turn at the next corner - why couldn't they sit behind and let you continue on your merry way without having to brake hard? I swear some people have absolutely no manners and no thought in their head apart from what suits them. Then they wonder why they are involved in accidents, or they leave accidents behind them.

So I was 10 minutes late getting into the show. I perused the book stall where we were to meet, no sign. I perused books in the stall until 25 past. Still no sign. The books were good though. I could've bought knitted babes for $9 but the dolls in it are not to my taste. Instead, these two should keep me busy for a while:

Ever since reading the Yarn Harlot's blog, I've been contemplating getting "Folk Mittens" and I want "Folk Hats" too (yes I would wear a hat with a bird on it!). Plus "Yarns to dye for" has been on the want list for a while (better go take it off my amazon wish list).

Something that surprised me in the dyeing book is that specific recipes with specific colours are given for the dyeing. I guess some people want to make stuff in the same colours as the book. I don't. I rarely make something in the same colours and feel sorta embarrassed when the model in a pattern book, for example, is wearing the same colour as I want to make - I feel like I am copying. Plus the watermelon stripes seeds are done by drawing on the yarn with a black textile pen. Sigh. I thought they had some fabulous little trick for that....

So I wandered on. The book stall was getting a bit busy.

I found some of the usual suspect yarn stores, but others were not there, which was very sad I thought. I missed talking to Sarah (or her lovely husband) but it did mean that I didn't buy any Colinette in the umm ?painter's garden? colourway that I saw in another stall. I would've liked to have talked to Jules but she wasn't there either. It seems that the Port Fairy Folk Festival clashed with SnC this year - the craft show is normally a week or so later but we have the Comm games starting this week. The mob from WA weren't there either and they usually have such a tempting stall.... Most of the second floor was devoted to beading. There were some other stalls but most of them were bead shops. Hardly any papercraft at all (last show I went to was all papercrafting and quilting with about 10 stalls for other crafts including knitting). I could not believe how many bead places there were. Yes I did buy some. They are pretty and shiny and I am a butterfly (not a magpie - I am NOT black and white, though I may be a bowerbird cos I love blue shiny things).

I can't show all of my haul cos there is a birthday present amongst it, and since I was buying this person something, I had to have some of it myself, otherwise I'd be jealous. Here's what I bought, no pics of the beads.






I love this mohair - it is really fine and there is 200m in the 25g ball. It is a gradated colour, going from blush pink to a pale peach and back again but the camera can't pick up the subtlty. I love the label even more.

If anyone can tell me what they really mean, I'd be grateful.

That is it! Such restraint! It helped that some favourite stores were not there. It also helped that we have a mortgage now. Was it worth the angst and the $17 ($3 for parking and $14 to get in) and the cost of what I bought? Well it only comes twice a year, so probably. I get to see yarns I otherwise wouldn't. I get to see other tempting crafts (I managed to NOT buy any patchworking material at all - I could resist cos I already have two boxes full of it and I have not used any of it at all!). I found a woman who teaches glass bead making - she was very helpful and nice. However, after two and a half hours I had had enough. I was overloaded on beads and crowds and crafts I am not interested in.

I have no idea how I would go at the big US wool shows, like Maryland. I'd probably be like a kid in a lolly store running from one thing to the next and become totally incapable of functioning within a very short time. I might even throw a tantrum!

Hopefully by the end of today I will have done some dyeing. I need to get some done (you know who you are!) but I have to set up something first and it is taking me longer than I hoped (not helped by DH telling me to use a certain saw and then after I've done lots of work with that saw telling me, "Not that one! It's blunt!"). I did process some fleece yesterday, and I am in love.... more later!

anon!