Ah, Maryland Sheep and Wool. How I love you. As I told Dan, it's one of my favorite days (weekends) of the year, up there with Christmas.
This was my 4th MDS&W (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008), and I must say that this Festival was the best demonstration I've had yet of the changes that come about with a baby - along with the fact that this post has taken me over a week to get up!
My first post-baby festival was quite interesting, indeed. Dan came with me (his first festival experience!) to help out, which was awesome - we did a tag team thing a lot. Basically, our schedule revolved around hers. We came late and left early, and took several breaks to get her out of her carseat (stroller) and have room to stretch (the sheepdogs were perfect!). We also got a lot of use out of the mei tai that Paula made for me (if that yarn-dyeing biz doesn't pan out, Paula's got a future in custom baby-wearing!) - while she likes to sit in the car seat and look around, she doesn't really like to sleep in it. But she will sleep snuggled up against my chest in the carrier. And she looked at the sheep:
Fuzzy, four legs, "Baa." Interesting.
I think I only went into two vendor barns and the Main hall. I didn't even make it to Brooks Fiber, but that's OK since I still have their yarns in my stash from previous festivals. Don't worry, I still managed to buy some yarn:
Yarny goodness!
Mostly from Tess... and mostly because every year I wonder "Why didn't I buy more from Tess?" Then I get their price sheet and I remember. But I did get some Superwash Merino for a sweater, and two skeins of the Super Sock & Baby (center bottom). I made the Monkey socks out of the skein I bought last year and I am really happy with them, so I went for a few more. The other sock yarn jumped out at me from the Cloverhill booth. (Can I just say how much I loved that booth? It was great having all of those indie dyers in one place!) The bottom right is Sanguine Gryphon (who I met at the Homespun Yarn Party), and the bottom left is Sushi Sock from the Unique Sheep. The roving is Gale's Art (one of the few bumps she had left on Saturday afternoon - her booth was pretty cleaned out!). And on the left is the Tilli Tomas "Sahara" kit that I won at the Ravelry party. I won a door prize, yippee! The yarn is gorgeous - the color of copper pennies:
Find a penny, pick it up!
Since Sahara is supposed to be a really fitted sweater, I'm going to wait a while to see what my proportions turn out to be (post-breastfeeding at least!), so you won't be seeing the finished product here on the blog any time soon, but it will have a very special place in my stash until then.
As always, the highlight of the fiber festival was the people - getting to hang out with all of these awesome folks in real life once or twice a year never seems to be enough.
Go Team Rav!
And of course I met up with many others at the Ravelry meetups and the party (thanks to Daddy for babysitting so I could hang out and have fun!) - friends from near and far... whose lives I keep up on by reading their blogs (and who I should comment more on!) - more pictures here. And to me, that's really the key of any great weekend - the fiber's just gravy! (OK, really good gravy, but bonus nevertheless).
Until next year! (Or until Rhinebeck in the fall!)
OK, so I know I said that this blog was going to be less about the baby and more about the craft, but have you noticed that flickr lets you upload videos now? How could I resist giving Raley the chance to show off her new vocal stylings?
Enjoy!
Raley turned 6 weeks old on Monday, and we had her well-baby check-up. And what a well baby she is! Here's the stats:
Length: 22 1/4", 75th percentile
What a relief! I figured the length would be fine, because she keeps outgrowing her footed sleepers (we're now firmly in the 0-3 month size rather than newborn, and edging towards 3-6). But I was worried about her weight - she seems like a skinny little bean! And of course we always worry about getting enough food into her, especially with our crazy feeding combo (breast, pumped milk, formula) - which I'll have to devote an entire post to later. But it seems like we've nothing to fear; as her doctor said, "Keep doing whatever you've been doing, because it's working!"
Here's a few photos of the munchkin:
Whoa - birds and leaves and things!
She's recently really been able to focus on things a few feet away, and she'll watch them for minutes on end. As well as this swing, she loves the animals that hang from the bar on her bouncy seat, especially the elephant.
Playing in the fresh air!
my serious baby
To keep the baby from entirely taking over this blog, so that I can eventually go back to crafts again (well, assuming that any crafting is occurring!), I'd like to announce that Raley has her own blog for daily photos:
http://raley365.blogspot.com
Also, this firmly proves that I am a new parent in the digital age with long-distance family. Please visit and feel free to leave comments!
And, in the category of "things I wish I didn't know" I now have special expertise in self-diagnosing mastitis. Yep, it came back... exact same symptoms, exact same spot. Same antibiotics, new dose. Hopefully this will get rid of it (again)!
