Okay, Let's Recap

Time for a little honesty among friends, no matter how painful it may be. And it is.

You may remember that I had a bit of a meltdown at Maryland Sheep & Wool in May, and bought way too much stuff. So, remembering that I haven't exactly set the world on fire with finishing up (or even beginning, in most cases) my MSW purchases, I really set out NOT to buy yarn at SAFF. My failure was spectacular -- I crashed and burned in a major way. Additionally, as though failure with yarn wasn't enough, I added another fiber to the shopping cart this time, roving.

Now, since technically I have no clue what to DO with roving, I'm considering roving bought at SAFF to be in the category of "school supplies." Beautiful school supplies, far from the lowly stuff of my childhood, the pencils (in the words of Bill Cosby) as big as a horse's leg, the paper that looked like half the tree bark was still embedded. No...this stuff can be fondled, hugged, sniffed, and sometimes the fibers actually inhaled if there's mohair involved. Dangerous stuff, but still "learning materials" since they're technically useless, in my hands at least.

Here are the school supplies:

Okay, no problem. School supplies don't count.

Here's the problem:





It's the freakin' yarn I wasn't going to buy:

2007 SAFF Purchases:

• Brooks Farm Acero and pattern for diamond modular vest. Okay, I'm not apologizing for this. It's just gorgeous. 5 skeins, all a shade different, about 2100 yards. Also, it was the only planned purchase -- enough Brooks Farm yarn for a vest.
• Yarnsmith Prairie (lambswool, baby alpaca, cashmere) - 2 skeins, different colors
• Prism Lace Wool, color Mojave
• Eidos from The Sanguine Gryphon, in Grape (sock yarn)
• Sea Silk - blue/green
• Dragonfly Fiber Company merino wool laceweight, Falling Leaves
• Miss Babs Sock Wool, in Rose Garden
• The brown Koigu at the bottom was bought for a class and it's only ends and really not enough to do much with so we're REALLY not counting it.
• Assorted patterns, implements (spindle, nostepinde), tee shirt and SAFF jacket, a pin and some buttons.

Don't even tell me you would have done any better. I did keep to my promise to not buy anything that I could buy elsewhere. Well, except for the Prism which I bought from Yarn Paradise and the Sea Silk. But, sorry! They jumped into my arms and wouldn't leave. But except for those two eensy-weensy technicalities I think I did great.

And, of course, I did promise myself that I would not bring home ANY more sock yarn. That being said, I think I did really well to only bring home two skeins. So there!

And, on the positive side, I did NOT come home with:

• a spinning wheel
• an Angora bunny.

But back to that honesty thing. Here's the MSW recap with progress noted in red. As you can see, there's still some work to be done.

2007 MDSW Yarn Purchases:

• Tess's Designer Yarns Superwash Merino blue (for Diamond Vest) - In progress
• Autumn House Yarns (Moss Agate, for Rune Way Vest)
• Socks That Rock, Superwash Merino, Mediumweight: (1) Romancing the Stone(2) Neptunite(3) Carbon Dating(4) Iolite
• Ellen's Half Pint Farms: (1) 100% merino wool blue/green(2) 80% wool 20% nylon, red/fuschia(3) 50% wool, 50% tencel, blues
• Celtic Knot Yarn Shop(1) Online Linie 3 sock yarn, blue/black(2) Opal taupe, coral and tan
• Athlone Farm Llama/Suri alpaca handspun
• Thistledown Alpacas Myfanvy handspun
• Tess Designer Yarns sock yarn, blues
• Tess Designer Yarns Superwash Lace (raspberry and green)
• Claudia's Handpainted Fingering (for Multidirectional Scarf)- Complete

Okay, I think that's way too much honesty for the time being. Let's go back to that denial thing that I do so well. The one where I praise myself for really not going overboard. Again.