We are back! We had a great time visiting our peeps in the midatlantic region, and of course visiting the yarn! We left on Thursday morning and flew into Dulles – my friend Amy lives pretty close to the airport. Also close to the airport is the National Air and Space Museum, and Rob really wanted to check out the planes. My fave was this guy to the right, who looked very hungry.

Then we were off to Georgetown to meet Amy after work. There was shopping. There were crepes and awesome calamari (but not together). There was drinking and mild ridiculing of the masses of urban professionals.

Back at Amy’s place there was Squarey!

I knitted Squarey for Amy a couple of years ago, and this is the first I’ve seen of him since. What followed was a XXX photoshoot with Rob and Squarey, but I’ll spare the internets those photos.

The next day we went the touristy route:

Rob’s seen many of the major DC attractions, so we hit up the International Spy Museum. Silence is safe, people. We also saw the Washington Monument. Again, there was plenty of food and drink – Rob needs to eat every couple of hours, it’s amazing.

Saturday was Maryland Sheep and Wool, the big yarny event. I got up bright and early to drive from near-Dulles to the fairgrounds and busted a move to the Koigu booth. It took me longer than it should have to realize that the booth didn’t exist – apparently there was a fall and injury affecting someone on the Koigu team, so they didn’t make it to the festival. I bounced back quickly enough and explored the main building, buying yummy stuff from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm and Spirit Trail before exploring the rest of the festival.

I don’t remember if I called them first or happened to run into them, but the Dallas troops were at the Fold booth, standing in line with their masses of Socks that Rock. I had met Chris and Nanc at Boerne, and met Jen and Lilyan (and others!) there. We all meandered over to the Tess both, where we split up because I spent absolutely forever in there. There was SO much good stuff at Tess. I was there so long that I ran into awkwardly introducted myself to Jess and Erin, both of whom I recognized from their blogs.

Of course I visited the alpacas and sleepy sheep. Those alpacas were munching in unison, SO CUTE!

Next up was the bloggy meetup, where I met a bunch of the knitters from the internets. I spotted Stacey’s awesome Turkish Stockings from afar – it was slightly overcast at that point, and the socks made a great knit-signal. I also met Kristy, Turtlegirl (spotted her sweater, too), Katydid Knits (whose real name I forgot, sorry!), Jess of the awesome Ravelry, and saw Christine and the DFW gals again. I took off right after the meetup, and happened to stop by one of the first booths where I ran into Lolly, who had just arrived. Whew!

Overall, the festival was pretty fun. I wouldn’t go every year – my credit card can’t take that much pain all at once. Especially that damn Tess booth, their yarns are absolutely gorgeous. I was really surprised at sheer size of the event – the booths were all packed by the afternoon. I was also surprised at how much lamb was on the menu. You’re buying wool, yummy wool, then you eat the sheep? The poor lambs!

The rest of the vacay was spent in Baltimore, visiting some grad school friends. There was, naturally, more drinking (Cinco de Mayo, baby!) and food (Rob must FEED), lots of shopping, and some more sightseeing at the Inner Harbor and a history lesson at Fort McHenry (where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner).

All in all, fun times! We got back Monday morning, and I went straight to work, whee. Yarny photos to come tomorrow!