Sheep and Wool part two

Jeanette and I [ sans Maz this year ] arrived at the Showgrounds a bit after 10am, parked outside for the princely sum of $3 and carefully negotiated our way inside, through cars and elderly kamikaze pedestrians, all vying for the same narrow bit of laneway. People were lined up out into the traffic...a recipe for disaster with several vision impaired seniors completely oblivious of the danger that they were in.

... anyway, paid our $15 and headed inside ... first and nearest: the woolcraft sheds which is where the various guilds are set up and the displays of the winning entries are housed.
I didn't even try to get photos of the entries this year... glass cases and bright lights equals flare and glare... so you'll just have to take my word for it that some of the stuff was gobsmackingly gorgeous, especially in the lace sections, and some was frankly a bit ordinary.
Anyway, who did we see [ and hug ] first? Mandie from Ewe Give Me the Knits and Donni who was sharing her stall in the first shed. Two hugs for the price of one! Totally failed to get a photo of Mandie, or Donyale either
Of course I HAD to buy something from EGMTK, so I chose some pearlescent lavender merino/bamboo mix. It looks a bit pinkish in this pic but trust me... palest pale lavender with a sheen that I have totally failed to capture here.
I would also have been equally happy with the merino/soy which was sooooo cloud soft that you just wanted to roll around in it buck nekkid, but managed to restrain my baser impulses because it was too bloody cold.
I also scored some beautiful variegated blue merino from the Spinners and Weavers Guild stall, and a hand painted silk 'cap' from Virginia Farm Woolworks. That and a back issue of Interweave Crochet plus an 'overpriced but quite good' coffee was it for me for the day. Granted I could've easily spent a lot lot more, but what with the recent dental bills, and then the gelt that I had to give the car fixin' fella on Wednesday ...well, I just set my limit of $50 including $15 entrance fee, and I stuck to it. So my shopping was finished before we even got to the two huge halls housing the main vendor area.

Hang on ... what's that scritching sound I hear? Oh! Right! That's Sheepie sharpening her best Ode-Writing Quill in order to pen hymns of praise to my steely self restraint.

Moving on before I get too depressed over all the lovely stuff I failed to drag home with me, the rest of the day was spent
interacting with various species of ruminant as documented yesterday

talking to various woodturners
and spinners
and goat persons

meeting up with lovely Lynne, another regular visitor to the blog [ originally I wrote occasional but I stand corrected ] and her equally lovely but under-the-weather daughter Susan, seen here trying to concentrate on the fashion show
[ Lynne says that her Susan and I are the same person in two bodies, so the poor love is probably quaking in her boots round about now, having had the scary vision of the person she may well morph into in about 30 years time ]

and also a couple of Ravelry friends, Tara aka FiestyWench, [ whose gorgeous fingerless gloves scored in a Ravelry swap these are ] and Lisa otherwise known as NakedPippi, who closed her eyes for the photo so you don't get to meet her
This is Tara trying on my handspun beret:
and in a related aside ... you will all remember those goodies that I have acquired recently, right? Lynne very kindly added to them with a shoebox FULL of postcards for my collection which she had dragged along with her all the way from Penrith in New South Wales and all round the Showgrounds... which, given the fact that the box weighed over a kilo, was quite an undertakingI've done a quick look-through-and-happy-dance ... will sit down properly and sort them out in a day or so, but so far I haven't seen a single one that I already have !!

so all in all a bloody ripper of a day even if I was on a budget and a tight time line!