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.
