Lambtown!

This is the first time I've been to Dixon (it's in the same general region as Esparto. Heh). I went with my parents, even though it was originally going to be a mom-daughter thing. We were going to take a class, but there was only one that interested me, and it was going to be 6 hours, which left no time to browse the vendors or enjoy the sheep-to-shawl.

We spent pretty much the entire time listening to the fleece judging. It was very educational, and the judge was concise and funny. We heard some nice anecdotes about Black Sheep Gathering, which sounds like it's ginormous.

I got some lincoln locks in blue-greens. I'm not a locks sort of person, but I've made a little skein on the Bosworth drop spindle* I got (mmm... Bosworth...) already, and it's very tweedy.

I also met the president of Spindles & Flyers who I've met before- her daughter goes to the Girl Scout camp I work at! I've only seen her twice, on the campfire night- the one night we all sleep at camp, where we cook dinner and have a compfire that the parents are invited to. In fact, last year, I selected her in the parent participation song ("An Austrian Went Yodeling")- she played the avalanche. This year I picked a mother from her same troop to play the cuckoo. Both years, she's worn this cute knit hat; I always assumed she'd bought it (cuz that's what sane people do), but when she saw me at Dixon, I realized she'd knit it herself.

She was one of several moms at Lambtown supporting the all-children sheep-to-shawl team. Like most things that are relaxed enough to allow children, their team won. That's not a bad thing, either. This will encourage the kids to continue spinning. In fact, there was a mom there who was joking that her son had a better wheel than she did (an Ashford Joy- better than my Ashford Traveller, certainly!).

Yes, it was fun, even with the various medical incidents (around lunch the women's bathroom of the fiber building was closed off because someone had collapsed or fallen or something- the cops were there. Later, as we were leaving- 4:30-ish- an ambulance had just arrived to take care of a little boy who had been hit by a falling branch. A branch. From a tree. How often does it happen that a branch falls off, and how often of those times does it hit someone? Wow).

*It's perfect for me. It's a fast and long spinner. 1.39 oz. It's made of bloodwood, which I've never heard of, but I think it's appropriate, considering my occasional morbidity. Heh.