BLACK SHEEP GATHERING REPORT - CONT.D

So, for the second segment of my BSG report, I thought I would share some of the luscious fibery things I purchased while at the show. Here are some of the lovely rovings I got from my booth partner, Sandy (Woolgatherings). Most of these are beautifully hand-dyed Blueface Leicester rovings and two are superwash Corriedale.

Here's some of the superwash Corrie that I have begun to spin. This colorway will be plied on itself and the yarn will probably find itself into a pair of socks -- most likely Lynne Vogel's tiny triangles socks, a pattern I love.

Here are two drop spindles I purchased from SpindleWood Co. -- Steve and Connie Paulsen of Monmouth, OR. [ www.spindlewoodco.com ] They had so many awesome spindles made out of exotic woods, it was very hard to make up one's mind. I chose the Manzanita Burl whorl with ebony shaft (on the left) and the Snakewood whorl and Madagascar shaft (on the right). I could not begin to choose between the two, so I bought both. These photos can't begin to do justice to the beauty of the workmanship. Each spindle weighs in at 1.25 oz.

Always one of my very favorite vendors is Toots Le Blanc & Co. [ www.tootsleblanc.com ] Michele Camacho and her brother, Carl Brittain, were knitting and rug hooking when they had spare moments in their booth. They have extra lovely natural colored yarns and rovings. I bought some laceweight yarns. The gray is a 40/60 angora rabbit/merino blend, and the brown is a blueface leicester/pygora blend.

My plan is to use these Toots LeBlanc laceweight yarns in a handwoven scarf using a star twill pattern. The fiber pictured above is a charcoal colored roving from Rainbow Yarns Northwest [ www.rainbowyarnsnw.com ] and it is a blend of 75% pygora and 25% fine merino wool. I could not resist and bought 12 oz. of this fiber, which set me back a few $$$, but it is some of the most beautiful fiber I have ever spun.

As always, I make a foray into Lisa Millman's booth -- Dicentra Designs. She has a wonderful sense of color and does very intense colorful rovings and yarns. I opted for some Blueface Leicester and merino/tussah rovings. And, in the mix, I threw in a matching rosey roving from my friend, Karen, who joined us up at BSG and had some rovings for sale in our booth under her label, High Country Fibers -- she can also be found on Etsy.

Of course, no trip to BSG is complete without a trip to the fleece sale. I was just going to go look but a gorgeous 6 lb. Corriedale fleece caught my eye. It was a 4th place winner and it was from Kathryn Burkholder of Craneview Ranch in Lakeview, OR. For the life of me I cannot capture the color of this fleece on camera. It keeps coming out gray, but the true color is a deep charcoal, almost black with little threads of gray. I've already started washing it and carding it and here's a small sample skein. This yarn will definitely make it into a sweater -- most likely my Jacob's Windows pattern that is in The Twisted Sisters Sweater book. I've been wanting to do a sweater like that again, using the natural colored yarn as a backdrop for little windows of yarn spun out of colorful rovings.

And in the bits of down time I had on my trip to Oregon, I worked on some little treasure bags using some small balls of handspun I have collected over the years. Here are some that I worked on and finished up during the trip and in the few days after.

More to come later.