Enhancing the stash...

It was supposed to be a nice outing, to see some more sheep being shorn, enjoy the glorious sunshine, buy some nice goodies, sit down and knit and spin with some of my homeys, chat some more as well, drink coffee, have cake, blah blah. And then the day came. And the heavens opened.
Even though it rained, we did go, me and the little Mermaid. See, we had seen on the good old tinternets that the rain would subside and it would become nice. It was just a bit of a shame that the good old tinternets was slightly accurate in that respect. The rain kept falling, although it was just a drizzle, and the wind kept blowing. But isn't it weird that when after three hours of tramping around on a field in your boots, when you don't even feel your toes anymore, you look at each other, smile, and go: THAT WAS GREAT!
It was great! We had a great time. And yes, sunshine would have helped, as the rain had scared some of the stallholders away (I didn't blame them, some actually got blown away yesterday), and the knitting workshop I had promised Mermaid was nowhere to be found... But, we made a sheep skin pompom, bought fudge, bought yarn, and most importantly, just had a great girls' day out. Eight-year-olds need that occasionally ;) (The four-year-old and his dad - on Father's Day - had a Star Wars day at home, so don't feel sorry for them).
Here's a frozen but beaming Mermaid with our purchases:

First up, the purchases for Mermaid. She is now the proud owner of a Lucet fork and some Zpagetti to go with it:

She quickly got the hang of it and actually forked her way through two balls on the journey home. She has lots of wild ideas about how to use the strings she made (and so have I ;). The set we bought came with a basket, which is great to put away her thingies before bedtime and keep all her crafting items together.

Don't think I got away with it so lightly, though... Miss Mermaid had seen a lovely shawl at the Marleen's stall and asked me if I could buy the pattern. And some yarn. And madam has an expensive taste (see, she IS my daughter after all...)... In the bag with the pattern went some sparkly Easyknits yarn, Twinkle-Witches Brew to be exact (superwash merino/nylon/stellina).

And while I was at the stand, chatting away, I noticed she had the most lovely and perfect sock yarn for the Aardbeientompoes pattern I bought last week (proceeds going to KIKA, a charity to research treatments for kids with cancer)... It's a bit more red than the picture, and strawberry enough to just want to sink your teeth into straight away. More Easyknits, this time Ruby Slipper-Superwash BFL.

And you thought I was finished, HA. No. They had a pin machine at the entrance. Talking about enabling addicts ;)
So, we filled up our purse, and headed back. First to get some coffee and hot chocolate, and then to fondle some spinning/felting wool. Yes, the type of stuff you can never have too much off. First, a whole batt to spin into sock yarn. 100 grams of Merino/Texel/Wensleydale in a lovely colour combo, dyed by Jeanet Koek, going from ochre via cream to light blue and the an almost turquoise green. Honestly, the hands are itching already...

And then, to finish it all of, a small bag of hand-dyed tussah silk (also by Jeanet Koek) and a bag of white Wensleydale curls by MeerVilt. Just because we liked the curls, and we want to experiment a bit with dying curls at home, to then make nice felted flowers or something else cool.

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the lovely ladies at the fashion show, of the strong ladies felting away at full fleeces, transforming them into rugs, or even the brave ladies dancing away on the fleeces barefoot (!). Too much to take in! We just stood their, enjoying the sights.
So now, I'm sitting on the sofa, finally warm again, still fondling yarn, frantically knitting at my pink socks (so hard in fact, that again I managed to break a bamboo needle - and repaired it again, hopefully it will last me long enough to finish this sock...), so I can start on one of my new projects. I'm off!!!