Looking for the Knitty contest for rosewood needles and Handmaiden & Lorna’s Laces yarn? Click HERE and keep those guesses coming!

So I’ve spent the last week in idyllic Vermont, hanging out with my big sister and her brood. Most of the time I’ve spent playing pirates with young Will - yeeaaarrrrrggghhh! - but along the way I’ve had some serious fiber-related fun. On Monday, we visited with Saintjay from Knittyboard, and she took us on an awesome tour of the local knit shops. We stopped in at Kaleidoscope and at Northeast Fiber Arts Center - two yarn stores I highly recommend - but mostly just yakked about politics, yarn and Vermont. (I’m sorry that I didn’t have a camera with me to take pics!)

Today, we drove down to Wells, VT in the north central Taconics to visit with the good folks at Woolambia. If you’re in the market for an Icelandic fleece, check them out! Their fleeces are just gorgeous and you couldn’t ask for nicer people. And isn’t it nice to know that your yarny goodness comes from a place like this?

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We got to walk around this beautiful farm and see its gorgeous, slightly wild-eyed Icelandic sheep. Meet this handsome bunch:

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These sheep were only shorn two months ago, but their fleeces have already grown out to about four inches. I bought two absolutely stunning black fleeces from twin lambs that were shorn at only six months - and the tog (the long outer coat of Icelandic sheep) was seven inches long! In adults the tog is rough, and the thel, or short undercoat, is downy soft, but in these lamb fleeces both tog and thel were remarkably soft and lovely. This ewe was exceptionally curious about us:

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And this one was full of beans, jumping all over the place - we were told that Icelandics are really part wild, and never quite get used to their human handlers:
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The slightly crazy-looking Icelandics shared their barn with one lone enormous Romney named Joe, a rescue sheep from up the road - we were told that unlike his companions, he was as gentle as, well, you know - a lamb:

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The whole trip was totally fascinating. Here’s the room where all the fleeces get sorted. Look at all those fleeces just waiting to be torn into! Have you ever seen Hefty bags look so alluring??

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Anyway, if you’d like to see some of the most wonderful white and colored fleeces, do check out the great stuff they’ve got over at Woolambia - they sell their fleeces online and they’re totally reasonably priced. It’s great to be able to buy something and know it came from a family farmer and not GigantoYarnCorp Inc.

More later… we’re here til Friday, then we wind our way back to Chicago via Niagara Falls… wish me luck on my journey, and I’ll be thinking of y’all as we travel along! (Since I’ve babbled on so much, I’ll only say that I’m flattered and amazed by all the folks who’ve stopped in for the contest!  Thanks and again, welcome!) Once I’m home I’ve got some amazing vintage patterns to show you, so be sure to stay tuned…  it’s gonna be a good one.