The Studio Tour

What a great weekend this was! It was one of the best I've had in a while. On Saturday I did errands and got a mani/pedi before going out with friends for dinner and a movie. Dinner was delish but the movie was not nearly as satisfying. We saw No Country For Old Men. The acting was fine, the cinematography and direction were good too but the story... oh the story. It was violent and bloody and just so depressing. We chose it because the reviews were really good but it was just such a downer. Thank goodness the company was good and that offset things quite a lot.

Speaking of good company - on Sunday my buddy Felicia, her baby B and I went on a studio tour in Maryland. Despite the lousy weather and way too many wrong turns to count (what is up with the roads in Maryland?), we had so much fun.

The first stop was Kiparoo Farm. It was way out in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness we took Felicia's car. Her truck was much more appropriate for the bumpy, country roads and, ahem, I think that the mud looked much better on it than it would've on mine.

The shop itself was really quaint and full of great stuff. Annie has 200 head of sheep and she mosty sells yarn that is sent out for processing but dyed by her. It is gorgeous stuff and supporting local agriculture made the purchases feel great.

Here are a few of Annie's sheep having a snack. They didn't mind the rain at all.

The next stop on our tour was Dancing Leaf Farm. This studio was so lovely and, as you can see, it was full of wonderful yarn. Look how wide awake B looks. She tried on a sample hat and chose yarn for a future sweater. We all had so much fun.

Although most of the yarn Dalis sells isn't from her sheep, she does have a few on the farm and they were very curious about all of the folks coming and going.

There were chickens at Dalis's farm too. I thought that these looked so cool. There were more traditional looking chickens there too but I've never seen any that looked like these.

As you can see, it was a wet nasty day but we had a blast. We went to other studios too and, of course we came home with more than we left with. I'll show you what I got in another post.

At one point during the day Felicia and I were musing on how rural things were just an hour or so outside of DC. It's amazing to find wide open spaces and livestock in an area that you usually think of as densely populated. At one place we went, there was a conversation in progress about the ongoing efforts to preserve the agricultural spaces and prevent golf courses and big developments from ruining the feel of the area. The bottom line is that it akes a lot of effort and organization. I'm thankful for all of the hard work that goes into it because we had a fantastic day.