Wool Market!

Yeah. The Estes Park Wool Market was held this weekend. It was just as good as you would expect it to be. I got even more stuff this year than I did last year (yes, it's possible). The vendors were wonderful, the animals were cute, and I managed not to be utterly overwhelmed by the wool fumes.

Although, I must admit that there were a few moments where I got a little light-headed. Regardless, I got a lot of good stuff.

We started out at the alpaca barn, having learned from experience that if you wait until after you go to the vendor barn a) you will be out of money and b) they will be nearly out of fiber. They had many luscious bits of fiber. I ended up with a little bit of dark brown and more than a little bit of gray fiber. They're gonna be fun to play with.

After the alpaca barn, we went to the vendor barn where we purchased from several of last-year's vendors and a few new ones. I got a LOT of stuff, mostly fiber. I got one lonely little skein of laceweight because it was just calling out to me, but otherwise I was able to restrain my yarn-purchasing impulses.

One reason that I managed to avoid purchasing yarn is because I know that I can find most of the yarns online at a better price. Or at least I can find them again, and you can pretty much tell what yarn is going to feel like from a picture. Fiber, on the other hand, is better purchased in person. Therefore, I felt no need to restrain my baser impulses in that area.

Want to see all that stuff piled up? Here ya go:

Remember, this is a judgment free zone. And also, notice how pretty it all looks! And how much variety in color and fiber content! Alas, I fear that I really need to start spinning again. Because the vast quantities of fiber I purchased yesterday are not going to fit in my fiber bin. And it's a pretty large bin. Oh well! More fluffies for me!




The green bag is the official wool market tote for this year. The artist had a lot of really cute things in their official booth, but Caitlin and I weren't so enamored that we purchased anything. The bag, on the other hand, was too cute to pass up. The print is "Maaaster's Degree," which we thought was appropriate.






Speaking of a master's degree, I'm taking marketing this summer and it's ruining my life. There's so much reading involved. The assingments aren't hard, but I'm taking the class online, so I have to participate in "discussions," and read the 2 textbooks, and read the cases and write my responses to them. Holy cow. Taking up all my time. Including the time I spend at work, since they haven't had much for me to do. But that's beside the point.

Between the job, and the class, and the upheaval of my life caused by moving to a different city for (at least) the summer, I haven't been doing a lot of knitting. It's a shame, really, since there are so many things I would like to knit. I'm thinking about purchasing more sweater yarn. And I need to purchase more chuppah yarn (Mariah picked one of the samples that I produced for her). And I am feeling the need to complete something I have on the needles. Either the highland triangle shawl, or the socks that I started so I can take them to work with me. Or the other shawl that's been hibernating for a while.

Or, and I realize this is really out of the box, maybe I'll get hooked on hexi-puffs. I got ensnared by some mini-skeins being sold by Jessica at Storied Yarns, and now I have 10 tiny skeins of sparkly colors that need a small project, and apparently these mini-skeins are perfect for hexi-puffs. We shall see.

The stash is getting out of control

I have to confess to a fiber-buying binge recently... I don't know what happened, but last weekend I fell hard off the fiber diet wagon. It started at the store where Caitlin works. They had this brightly colored bump of BFL from Mountain Colors. And they were having spin-in that night... and I'd magically brought my spinning wheel without being asked. Man. It was just serendipitous all the way. So I bought it, finished the alpaca that I'd been fighting with, and started spinning the new bump of fiber, even though I had brought a different braid with me, just in case. Anyway, I finished that bump this week.

Pretty, right? It's gorgeous, and it's BFL, which I adore, and I'm trying really hard to think of something luscious to knit with this. Something that will really show off the colors. Otherwise, it might have to be some kind of yarn art for a while. The colorway is called Springtime, which I think is pretty perfect, since the weather is acting pretty spring-like lately...

Then, Caitlin and I spent Saturday on a button hunt. I required buttons for the February Lady sweater that I intended (and did!) finish last weekend. Well, we ended up going to the Fancy Tiger, in Denver, which has a great selection of fibers. I may have fallen down in there, and accidentally purchased 2 braids of fiber from them.

As I mentioned, the alpaca fiber is done. It was a labor of love. You know how much I love alpaca. It's one of my favorite fibers, and it feels so pretty, and this bump of fiber had been taunting me from the top of my yarn bureau (yes, I have a yarn bureau, you don't?) since November, when I lost the battle to not purchase it in the face of a massive sale.





Alas, I fear that I'm not quite ready for non-sheep fibers. I just haven't had enough practice. By the end of the bump, I think I was doing pretty well, but starting out was painful. Anyway, the finished yarn is luscious and wonderful, but I'm not ready to get back on the alpaca for a while. (See what I did there? Like getting back on a horse, but with a fiber animal. Hahaha, I'm hilarious, I know. You don't have to tell me.) I'm thinking of turning the alpaca handspun into a cowl or hat or something that I wear next to my skin, it's so soft and pretty. I love that it's kind of an oatmeal color, and looks a little rough. We'll see what it wants to be next winter. I can't knit alpaca in the summer.

Finally, this week I found myself tempted by several braids of fiber by various online sellers. I bought a braid of merino/silk from a destash on Ravelry, and some merino/bamboo from Etsy... well, it just got me in the mood to make an effort to restrain the spinning stash. So I've made a new resolution: when at home, I'm going to spin spin spin spin spin. I finished the sweater, and haven't really got any knitting that I want/need to do until the test yarn for Mariah's chuppah (did I tell you that I'm knitting a chuppah for a Jewish wedding next summer?) comes in. Since I'm feeling uninspired on the knitting front, I shall apply my efforts to spinning. Already I've made a pretty good start, I finished the Mountain colors bump, and have started a new braid of merino.

It's very pretty, very easy to spin, and I'm enjoying it. The colorway is Rue (from the Hunger Games), and it's from Storied Yarns. Pretty awesome.

Wish me luck in keeping the new resolution. I'm really hoping I can make a dent in the stash before I run out of oomph. We'll see. Next time I'll post a picture of the new sweater, and hopefully something newly spun.