Fiber Monday - Sheep and Wool Festival

I have a lot of sheep pictures on my phone, but I'll spare you and just share one. 

This is a Ouessant sheep, which is the smallest sheep breed. They are from France and have very fine wool. I had no idea there was a flock in Wisconsin. I do have a secret (okay, not actually so secret) desire to have a collection of different sheep breeds. They look almost deer like. 

Now that the sheep trivia is done, let's move on to the festival. G. and I watched much of the Shetland show which was pretty interesting. We then wandered around, bought some sheep-related items we needed, then hit the vendor halls. I think I was pretty restrained. I bought a pound of Shetland roving because it is the type of wool I dye and provide to my Sheep and Fiber class students. I was starting to run a little low, so this was a necessity. 

My unplanned splurge was an inexpensive kit to knit this hat. 

I'll make this once I'm done with the sweater vest I'm working on. 

I also bought some buttons because I needed them for the jacket I've been working on. It is all done now and just needs handwork on the hem, facings, then buttons and buttonholes.

Thank you to everyone who told me not to add the questionable embellishments. It was the right decision. And for the sewists along you, please appreciate my flat felled seams around the arm holes.

Here are the buttons I ended up with.

They're antique Italian glass and I love them. 

After the shopping, it was time for me to head to the class on carding wool that I signed up for. (G. happily watched some sheep dog trials and visited more sheep.) It turned out to be a really useful class. I have never been quite happy with the results of my carding, so was able to get all my lingering questions answered. I love that. 

Here is a picture of my before and after.

On the right is the first rolag (what you get when you card wooI; it is what is spun), and the one on the left is the last one I made. It was a three hour class, so in-between there was a lot of carding.

It was the last class session of the festival, and the teacher (who had taught other classes) had brought a lot of wool that he didn't want to bring home, including some raw fleece. Now I had resolved that I wasn't buying any raw fleece because I have more fleece to process than I have time. But if you're offered a free fleece from a breed you had been wanting to work with, how can you say no? I stuck to my resolution because I didn't purchase it. 

It's a Romney lamb fleece and there is a lot of it. 

It's going to be a lot of fun to work with. (Which I realize is what I've said about every fleece I have ever brought home.) L. is convinced I need a fleece intervention.