Margaritas and Maryland

Quatro was a hit!

Eating guacamole and drinking margaritas in 80 degree weather is heavenly:

Deirdre and Meg:

Deirdre got 12 inches of her hair cut off last week for Locks of Love. Doesn't it look fab?

Next stop on the Summer Cocktail Series: Washington Square on May 18th. This looks like a martini night. I mentioned to a co-worker that this was our next stop and her reaction (not her words) clearly told me that this place is much too cool and trendy for me and I'd better go shopping before next week. Great, now I'm succumbing to social pressure to be cool...what am I, 12?

Maryland Sheep & Wool:

There was a 5 or 6 hour period on Friday when I thought I wasn't going to be able to go. We had a bit of a family emergency on Friday and although everything is okay, I really thought I wasn't going to make it to Maryland. I was so glad to be there on Saturday.

The weather was beyond perfect. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful, better day. I heard so many people throughout the day (mostly in the bathroom line) who could not believe how crowded it was and who were exclaiming about how many people were there but I didn't notice a big difference from the past two years. Jody and I got to the fest around 9:15 am, scored a fairly good parking spot and headed straight to Tess' Yarns. The people around us chuckled when Jody answered her cell phone and told Paul that if it wasn't an emergency, this really was not a good time to talk (she said it much more nicely than that). There can be no chatting while browsing Tess' Sock Yarn. We scored a few great colors although we talked later in the day and we're realizing that after three years of buying from Tess' Yarns, we're not seeing anything new and that if it continues at this pace, we're going to run out of things we like and have not seen before. We'll see. I think we have another year or so in us of buying Tess' yarn with this much gusto.

After Tess' we headed straight to The Fold (I had made a list of the six or so must-see vendors and their locations and brought it with me). We were disappointed at the selection and annoyed at the girls who just stood there talking about how great they thought everything was even though they weren't picking anything up! IF YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH, BUY IT AND MOVE. I saw the Jasper color which I bought last year and now is knitted into one of my top 5 favorite pairs of socks. I bought two skeins, one variegated, one near solid- pictures tomorrow. We suspected that they'd be cleaned out by noon and when we walked by around 10:30, there looked to be only a dozen or so hanks left. The fact that the selection was so limited when we got there around 9:30 am was sort of a bummer.

We then hit the bathroom line and ran into Claudia, where we congratulated her on the incredible fundraising. Then we went to Brooks where we each bought some GORGEOUS yarn- I could have walked around that booth all day long just picking things up and looking at them in the sunlight. That yarn is so incredible! After that, we finally stopped going to specific booths and started making the rounds, barn by barn, booth by booth. We are sock yarn buyers at heart and we scored. There were some examples of hand-dyed yarn that seemed disappointing after some of the really beautiful things we bought (especially from the booths we hit early in the day). As Jody said to me on Saturday, this really isn't a show where you can sell poorly dyed yarn. You have to compete with AMAZING yarn.

We saw so many bloggers as we walked through the fest. It was great to meet Lolly who has become quite the blogging celebrity. Between Socktoberfest and Project Spectrum, Lolly starts a movement when she starts a project! I was so happy to finally meet Kate. We missed each other at the fest last year but not this year! We exchanged cell numbers last week to ensure that we'd meet this year. Both Kate and Lolly are even cuter in person than they are on their blogs (this seems impossible, no?). I have to tell you that I have seen some people in person after seeing them on their blogs and thought, wow, she must have a magic camera because she does not look like that in her pictures! But not these girls...they are cute, cute, cute in pictures and in person.

I took only one picture at the fest. It was the biggest hank of yarn I've ever seen. Over 1000 yards of yarn. Here's Jody posing with the yarn- for scale:

Jody brought that awesome bag with her and filled it with all the yarn she bought. She then spent the day walking it into my back because she had no idea how far it was sticking out. She must have apologized 20 times. Good grief, that was so much yarn!

Tomorrow: pictures of the haul!