Sheepies at Bendy

You would've been proud of me. My maiden voyage to an Australian Sheep and Wool Show and I managed to keep entirely Knit From your Stash 07 legal. Yes, you did read that correctly. I did not buy so much as a skerrick of wool [ what's a skerrick anyway?]... and it was EVERYWHERE I tells ya.

There was wool, wool and more wool - glorious colours, heady scents, irresistible textures but I resisted. I am strong. I am invincible. I am ... oh sorry...channelling Helen Reddy there.

There was felt in all forms and permutations. There were the knitting competition entries - which I totally forgot to photograph -almost no baby knitting surprisingly but huge numbers of intricate lace shawls...
and then there were the sheepies. [ also alpacas and goats but they were on the far side and our feet wore out and time ran out before we reached them ] We also skipped the fashion parade for the same reason.

This is Baaaala [ I think they actually said it's spelled Barla which is supposed to be Hindi for girl, but I like my way better ]
At this point we'd been there about an hour and a half and had managed to move about a hundred metres from the entrance.

Then I ducked into the coloured sheep tent and saw what I am convinced is the world's fattest Border Leicester Ram

and I have no idea what this girly is but I loved her sweet face.

One thing that was really noticable was the sea of grey and white heads at all of the various Guild Exhibits : the Spinners and Weavers, the Handknitters, the CWA ladies - no wonder that stereotype still lingers. Where were all the funky young knitters and spinners and so forth that I know are out there? Well most of them were manning [ womaning? ] the stalls in the commercial area.

Speaking of which Jeanette and Maz decided that I didn't have enough sheep so they bought me two [toy] rams!! That would be them with the horns in the middle of this mug shot of most of the flock.The smaller one makes the most incredibly shrill baaaaing sound if you so much as look at it. I suspect that his batteries won't be replaced too often.


What else? Well, we met up with the lovely Barbara from Yarn Magazine, Maz had a great time talking vintage knitting gauges with The Button Lady and scored a limited edition carved bone one from Nepal, I had a long and involved pow-wow with the rep for Oertoel Electric wheels. All good stuff in fact but sadly undocumented with photos.

The only fly in the ointment was a lady from the Spinners and Weavers Guild stall who overcharged Maz and I $5 for the same magazine. We both bought that copy of Spin Off that has the Estonian lamb puppet on the cover and only realised once we got home that she'd charged us the original price of $15, not the $10 it was marked at :[
Maybe I should make sure I get my money's worth and knit a southern cousin for Ms Lulu.

Also on my wish list were a niddy noddy [ and she scores ]

hand carders [ scores again ]



and this knitted and felted sheep pattern that I didn't know was on the wish list until I saw it.

There were a 'few' other 'small' purchases but this post is picture heavy enough for one day so that's your lot.