The Fire Within...

I've done it yet again. I packed up the car and let the GPS take me to a place I have never been to do something I have never done for the purpose of allowing it to change me somehow.

When I leave on these journeys, I am always hopeful that I will at least learn something and come home with a new skill. A really good bungee jump out into the world will peel back your skull, and press and prod your gray matter into a slightly different shape. The better to absorb things with, my dear.

If that's the case, the time spent on the Playa opened up my cranium and let my brain walk free with everyone else's.

I would tell the story, but those who were there will understand.

Those who weren't, won't. Not really. Not....really. The Playa is something that can only be experienced.

And even if I tried I wouldn't do it justice anyway..I've tried three times and my mouth is too small to contain it. It feels like blasphemy.

Bahhhhhhh....Ram.....& you!

I'd done this sort of thing before...travelling someplace I had never been to learn about something I knew little to nothing about. It's a pattern with me. Some might say... a sickness not unlike my overuse of ellipses.

This time, I was to board a bus from from somewhere inside Philadelphia which was bound for a destination somewhere outside Baltimore for the purpose of attending a Sheep and Wool Festival.

What 's a sheep and wool festival? I'm glad you asked. It's sort of like a mass introduction of one group of people - The producers of yarn and yarn-related anythings with their equal and opposite counterparts - the people who wish to buy them.

As with anything, there are some who would consider the prospect of a Sheep and Wool Festival to be oxymoronic at best (the OAB's) and others who get very, very exited about it (the VVE's) I was about to board a bus with 100 VVE's followed closely by another 100 in seperate bus, all setting sail from one little yarn shop.

Even odder, to the OAB's is the fact that we must have leapfrogged 10 other buses full of VVE's on the way down. Since I'm not a spinner or a knitter, most of the conversation was foreign to me so I kept quiet except for an occasional expletive when I dropped my hook and a thank you when it was returned to me.

I did manage to ask someone if that was a Mike-n-Ike under their seat or did they lose a needle covery thing. It was a Mike-n-Ike.

Anyway, the event.

I go to these sorts of things to learn stuff, but also to reconnect myself with humanity at large and to remind myself that no, I am neither the most fashion challenged person on the planet, nor the oddest looking one.

Everyone except me, it would seem, had something that they had created on or about their persons. There were sweaters, tops, shawls, belts, headbands, headwraps, skirts, bags, swaddling clothes, you name it.

To me, it was like walking the streets of a bazaar in a country I had never been to. Constant chatter hummed around me broken only by the occasional MMMMMMBLEEEEEAAAAAGGGHHH of a sheep or ram. (Ram, by the way, have freakishly large testicles. I'm pretty sure that a hollowed out sheep nut could house an Indonesian family.)

There were shouts of glee at the prices a particular yarn hawker was offering. There were shouts of recognition as old friends and cyber-friends recognized each other across paddocks. There were shouts of "Oh, crap!" as those distracted by all the colorful string walked right into fresh piles of sheep poop.

What stuck me most is that fiber artists are such a diverse group that we cannot be stereotyped. The common images of the crunchy patchouli-soaked weaver or the knitter with as many cats as grandchildren just don't hold up.

We come in as many colors and weights and fibers as there were yarns available at this gig and we do just about as many things with it all. As for me, I took some time to see all this through my camera lens and then set about doing some shopping.

Most notable of my purchases is a skein of "naked" wool yarn for the purpose of dyeing it myself with Kool-Aid. Apparently it's not just for deranged cult leaders anymore!

I also came home with a sunburn that looked not unlike a yoke around my neck, but that's alright. I have bigger worries...most importantly, how I can get a note to the U.N. about having solved the world housing crisis through sheep testicle technology.

You can see some pictures, here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bean_sidhe/?savedsettings=2465624787#photo2465624787

Of the event, not the ram balls.

NoMo Noro - The Winner Announced

I have to admit, some of the answers confused me and had me asking questions like...

"They know this is wool, right?"

and

"I already felted it..."

Regardless, a winner must be chosen and so choose I shall.

*tick tick tick tick*

*DING!*

As fun as your ideas are, I get the feeling that none of you (dubiously) rational grownups REALLY want this atrocity, so I will award it to the wee ones Alora and Athena because mom is right! Little girls don't care about anything but how BRIGHT and PINK something is. (I like me some bright and pink too, but...jeesh, throw some black in there will ya?)

And also because my name is Alia and I think that a hat shared between us three girls with unusual A names is a good way to pass something on.