I decided to go to the BSG again this year because Judith MacKenzie was judging the fleeces, and I wanted to bring a couple of fleeces to get her opinion.  Originally Tom was going to accompany me again so I reserved a nicer hotel room with a jacuzzi tub to make his stay a little nicer.  But he decided instead to go on a camping/motorcycle trip with my father and brother.  So I decided to spoil myself (and my back) and keep the reservation.  Above is the tub, and below is the fireplace and TV in the jacuzzi’s room.

I drove down Thursday (7 hours) and dropped off my two fleeces.  Then returned on Friday morning to catch the Shetland sheep judging.  This is the ram class.

This is a cool knitted skirt seen during the sheep judging.

Here are two cute lambs that hung out with us for a little while in the stands.

Here is some of the Shetland ewe lambs being judged.

After the sheep judging was over, I headed to the wool building to watch Judith judge fleeces.  There I spotted this cool purse that appears to be made with baling twine.

On Friday evening, I went to the Ocean Sky to join other shepherds in dinner.  It was fun catching up with everyone again.  We were all starving so actually made a dent in the copious portions of food they served.

On Saturday I returned to the wool show to watch the fleece judging.  Here is a beautiful fleece about to be judged.

And here is Judith with a Teeswater lock.

And here are some of the Shetland yearling fleeces about to be judged by Judith.

And here is Velvet’s fleece being judged by her.  She had nice things to say but I did not get a ribbon.  There was fierce competition, and my fleece (and sheep) are small and so lost out on size.

The fleece judging was behind schedule, and I was starving by the time the Shetlands were over so failed to get any more photos of the judging including Heidi’s fleece.  I ate a quick lunch and then scoped out the sales barns.  Here is an interesting sweater sheep.

I then headed back to the wool sale to check out the fleeces before the sale opened.  Here is a cool windshield sunscreen I encountered en route.

Here is Velvet’s fleece with Judith’s nice comments.

And here is a pretty Icelandic fleece.

I am proud to say I did not buy any fleeces at the wool show.  I headed back to the hotel and relaxed, spinning and knitting while watching the World Cup.

On Sunday I headed back to BSG and took in a sock machine knitting demo.  I checked out and then drove home.  Traffic was awful from north of Vancouver through Tacoma.  It took me 8 hours to get home.  The whole time I was telling myself I am never going back to BSG again.  This sentiment may change as I forget about the traffic though.  Here is the loot I bought at BSG.

I did pretty well.  A couple of bars of soap, an emergency skein of white Shetland yarn since I accidentally grabbed camel yarn instead of Lonny’s and needed the white Shetland for the next row of my knitting project, and some camo roving to make something cool for my hubby.  I also got some of the tie-dyed BSG shirts.  Here is the progress I made on my sweater.

I managed to spin, ply, skein and wash the white Satin Angora in 1.5 days during BSG as well as getting quite a bit of the knitting done.  All and all a successful Gathering.