First off, the Ren Faire. Me, Jag and Michelle drove to Charlotte on Sunday to spend the day at the Carolina Renaissance Festival. The weather was sunny and dry but on the chilly side, and the areas shaded by trees stayed pretty cold all day. The people selling Italian ices were sad and lonely, while the places with hot cider and coffee were doing a brisk business. Michelle hung out at her friend Kim’s booth, spinning and selling her beginner drop-spindle kits (very successfully!), while Jag and I wandered around, watched shows, ate and shopped.

It was way too cold for a kilt. Jag was happy to have his warm leather jerkin.

The Walking Tree Man was back, much to my delight.

I got another picture with him, and ended up buying his t-shirt. This character just fascinates me. I clearly have some unresolved “tree issues” to work out.

One of the downsides of the Festival is the number of people smoking. It’s an outdoor event, so it would probably be impossible to enforce a no-smoking policy, but it seemed like every time we sat down for a show, some exposed-butt-crack redneck loser would sit in the next row, light up and blow smoke in our faces. Take Sir Mullet van der Schproingie here, at Zilch the Toryseller’s show.

Jag and I made a couple interesting purchases; he ordered boots from the Catskill Mountain Moccasin Company, and I bought a shoulder dragon puppet. I’ve wanted one since the late 1990’s when I first saw this vendor (at the Georgia Renaissance Faire), and I figured that now was the time, since he perfectly matches my purple and black outfit. His name is Alfredo.

I also dyed up another batch of rovings over the weekend. Some BFL, some Targhee, and one hunk of Brown Sheep gray/black roving that I overdyed in greens (it sold about 2 hours after I posted it on Etsy!). I’m trying something new where I have 2 lengths of roving dyed in different colorways that can be plied together (or not, but come on, barber pole 2-ply rules!) and I’m calling them “Live and Let Ply”. (Thanks to the folks on #dhgng for all the great suggestions!)