Wooly Fun

In short, my first experience with the Michigan Fiber Festival was delightful. There were lots of beautiful items for sale from the vendors (gee, I wish I had taken some pictures!), which gave me plenty of nifty ideas for future projects, but surely my favorite part of all was seeing the creatures who produce all that fiber in question.

Recently I discovered the divine nature of alpaca yarn. Maybe because I'm still a new knitter (I'm coming up on my second anniversary), I had little concept of the charms of the llama-like animal. Who knew that a cud-chewer with a mop-top could make my heart go pitter pat? Alas, I am in love.

Mum and I also got a fantastic lesson in angora rabbit fur. One angora farmer (?) gave us a personal tour through the still-attached fur of her 6-month old rabbit to show us the different parts of the fur that are responsible for producing high-quality angora that, when worn as a sweater, won't leave the black skirt you paired it with looking like it grew cilia. Fascinating stuff, to be sure.

And in the sheep barn, I even saw a curly-locked sheep (shown in the photo above) with hair strangely similar to my sister's. (I mean the curls, not the presence of straw, poop, and other effluvia. Ahem.)

The crowd favorite -- and mine -- was the herding dog demonstration. I left feeling both amazed at what one border collie could accomplish and dismayed at how little I've been able to train Groucho the Wonderpooch to accomplish. I don't want to think that I have a dumb dog, nor do I want to think of myself as a second-rate trainer. So maybe border collies are superbreeds; yeah, that's what it is.

The day ended all too quickly but not before I learned one of life's important lessons. While my desire to support the small-town band by purchasing a hot dog from their stand is well-intentioned, it probably won't be wise to repeat. There's nothing like a two-and-a-half-hour drive home spent wondering whether that dog just grew legs so it could run all around one's insides. Good thing Groucho got me used to saying "Stay down, boy."