Great but exhausting weekend.  I'm positively droopy right now.  On Friday, I drove to Mount Horeb, WI, where I joined the Cultured Pearls Knitting Guild for their knitting retreat at Blooming Escapes, which is West of Madison.  The place was really nice, as were the ladies of the knitting guild.  Had ample room and light for knitting (or pretty much any other craft), a nice kitchen, good sleeping accommodations and nice bathrooms, with bedding and towels provided.

On Saturday, I headed over the the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Jefferson, WI.  I got there at 9 so I could watch the fleece judging.  I wanted to learn something about fleeces from the judges and I did.


These are judges from the UK judging a Shetland fleece.


This is a selection of all the fleeces judged that day.














After the judging was finished (around 3:30pm), they took a bit to get organized for the silent auction that started at 5:30pm.  It was unseasonably hot that day and the fleece judging building was extremely warm, making the day quite exhausting.  I only managed to knit an inch or two on two socks..

I did manage to do some shopping in the market.  I got some Unicorn Power Scour and Fibre Rinse and a set of Schacht Cotton Hand Carders.  And then I got some hand-dyed tops from Yarn Hollow and Creatively Dyed Yarns.  I also picked up 2 oz of Tussah Silk & Cashmere from Anne's Fiber Expressions and 4oz of Gotland Roving (which is pretty rare to find here in the US - that was a gorgeous grey and felt like a cloud of joy) from Illinois Will of Fiber Mill and, 4 oz of natural Cormo Top blended with 20% silk from RiverWinds Farm.  Lastly, I picked up some yarn from Miss Babs to make the Kleio shawl by Romi Hill.














After I walked the market, I went back to wait for the fleece sale.  I registered to get a bidding number.  Then waited some more.  Then I picked out which fleece I most wanted and 3 or 4 others I might bid on.  I ended up winning these two fleeces, and was the only bidder.  The one on the right was the blue ribbon Corriedale fleece.  The left one was the red ribbon (2nd place) fleece from the dual-coated category, an Icelandic fleece.














I've already started washing the Corriedale.  It will take...a while.