| |  First of all, I know, I'm a bad blogger! Poor li'l neglected Xanga site. Hopefully I've made amends by including...this picture of adorable alpacas! I went to Fiber Revival 2009 on Saturday the 15th to indulge in a little fibery goodness. This was the third year the festival was held at the Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm in Newbury, MA, but the first year I heard about it. Needless to say I was pretty excited! It was near 90-degrees on Saturday but it was a beautiful day for a drive straight up Route 1A, with an easy turn right into the museum entrance. iI drove up a wide lane lined with beautiful, ancient, sweeping trees. It wasn't hard to imagine the road as a dirt lane on which carriages rode up to the main house two centuries ago. It's nice to see the trees are still there. Not only was this my first time at the festival, it was my first visit to the farm, which I've been meaning to visit for some time. The house itself was a beautiful old stone and wood mansion, with acres of farmland and museum exhibits.  They were offering free tours that day but we didn't stay long enough to take advantage. I found it a little confusing, trying to find the usual exhibits among the festival; I'll have to pay another visit when the museum isn't hosting an event. I feel weird taking photos of people's booths and of other people, so please excuse the lack of fiber-related photos. (Obviously, I had no problem photographing other people's alpacas.) My favorite part of the festival was that herd of adorable alpacas! I've never seen one in person and they are just as gentle as can be. I love their big, expressive eyes, and they all look like they're smiling. They were lovingly attended by their human family. There were a couple of baby alpacas in the crowd, but the photo above is the best one I could get; they all turned their backs to me whenever I snapped a photo! The alpacas were there for the festival, but a variety of animals live on the farm every day. I couldn't resist getting a shot of this little guy (girl?) when I saw him sleeping in the sun. He was so completely unaware of all the yarn and spinning behind him, I had to laugh. Look at how his front paws are stretched apart. I was admiring his gray and white stripes while simultaneously coveting the spinning wheel behind him. There are a variety of farm animals that are cared for and used for educational purposes, such as horses, goats, (giant!) pigs, chickens and even a turkey. Many of the animals are rescues, and the museum has a donation box asking for help in caring for them. I snapped what I thought would be a picturesque view of a sheep by an old shed--when the sheep moved, I realized she only had three legs. I envied the groups of fiber enthusiasts who had travelled together, or met up, and brought their projects, folding chairs and lunches. I was accompanied by one non-knitter (Mom) and one extremely casual knitter (my sister). This basically limited us to looking at the exhibits and doing a little shopping.  It was hard to limit myself but I spent a mere $41: $20 for a 4poz. bag of alpaca roving, and $21 on some handpainted sock yarn--you can never have too much handpainted sock yarn! The roving is a beautiful undyed mocha brown color, and came from an alpaca named Dani Girl. This was the first time I met the source of my spinning and knitting face-to-face! Dani Girl, on the other hand, seemed less impressed than I was... My sister was the biggest surprise of the day: she walked into the festival, saw the vendor selling unprocessed fleeces and decided she wanted to take up spinning! 
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