The Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival

The Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival was this weekend. I left bright and early yesterday morning to get there by opening time, 10 am. The drive is about an hour and a quarter from my place. There were already many people queued up when I arrived at 9:30 am.

The half hour passed quickly in the idyllic setting of the Tunbridge fairgrounds, surrounded by the rolling Vermont hills with still some color in the leaves. (We peaked early this year which I imagine is do to the drought. We are still in an extreme drought situation.) In no time we were all passing through the gates in anticipation of all the wool goodies inside the grounds.

I had a short list of items I really wanted to find: A fleece, some wool fabric, maybe some roving, and a distaff. The first booth of importance to me was Green Mountain Hooked Rugs where a good selection of wool fabrics were on offer. Why do I want wool fabric? Because last month I purchased an unfinished, vintage, hooked rug on eBay for practically nothing. Reason for it being so inexpensive was that it had a few holes in the unhooked areas. But I know how to fix that. So I found all the colors I needed at the booth, in order to finish the rug. The yellow isn't quite the match I was hoping for, but Inktense colors can remedy that (I've already tested). This is the rug; I couldn't resist the colors and the charm of it:

The finished rug will be rectangular, 24" x 36". I have managed to find out quite a lot about the pattern, which tickles me. There's an inscription running around the canvas which reads, "An original design inspired by sister Sylvia's flower garden." Although a bit hard to read, I also made out "McGown" in the inscription. One of the several books on rug hooking in my library is titled "You Can Hook Rugs" by Pearl McGown, (c) 1951, and it has lots of pictures. Just on an off chance the design would appear in the book, I thumbed through all the pictures, and there it was, on page 52, a black and white photo! It's called "Flowerette" in the book. The caption reads, "Sister Sylvia used #346 Flowerette (24 x 36) for her first rug -- mainly because all of the flowers were picked from her garden -- and being one of those perfectionists her efforts were most gratifying!" How very cool!

The same booth was offering some hand hooked rugs for sale (some quite stratospherically pricey, as one would expect), but there was one vintage rug that I really liked, and being used, sported an affordable price. I do love these old rugs, and it came home with me.

This Wensleydale fleece was just what I was after. Not the breed specifically, but the size, crimp, and lock length. And the colors! This one will not be dyed. I can't wait to start processing it.

As for a roving, I found this hand dyed one irresistible. A mix of Merino wool and Tussah silk (Tussah comes from wild silk moths). Oh, so pretty. It should make a beautiful yarn.

A distaff was not to be found anywhere on the premises, that I could see. There is a strong likelihood I will attempt to make my own.

A successful trip! I was done shopping within an hour and by that time it was getting crowded, quite so. The weather may have accounted for the turn out, it was supposed to reach 80F! (Same today, tomorrow, and Tuesday as well.) So a visit to the animal shed, a bit of petting, and I was on my way home.

Part of the reason for leaving so early was due to the fact that my living room has been under construction all week and my time with Cielo (my hand raised Lovebird) was quite curtailed. I could tell Saturday evening that he was in need of quality time. So I came home to spend a fair amount of the day with him.

The living room... I had one wall that was covered in dark paneling cut down to wainscoting a few years ago, and I papered the top. Last week I had the same dark paneling removed from the opposite wall. The contractor should be finished by about Wednesday this week, and I will then paint the sheetrock. Here's what it looked like after he had removed the paneling and old insulation. The ceiling will be replaced next spring, hopefully.