Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Working my way back from the Most Recent

With such a large gap in my blogging, where do I start to catch up??......with the most recent event, of course---The Estes Park Wool Market.

This now annual event for me and Stacy was expanded to two days for us this year, Saturday and Sunday with a stay overnight at a cute riverside motel.

Unfortunately, the weather gods decided we needed rain, lots of rain, so the sun was barely visible all weekend.   Clouds hovered over the nearby rock peaks,

and it even snowed in Rocky Mtn National Park.   The water flowed swiftly in Fall River, by the motel and downtown.  The second picture is the motel manager checking the river depth gauge, since
Estes was under a flood watch all weekend.


Some wild critters (elk) were roadside, saying hello.

I finished my February Lady Sweater finally, by late nights and sewing on the buttons on Saturday morning.   No time to give it a proper blocking, but a steam pressing an hour before Stacy came.   I ended up wearing it all weekend thanks to the temps in the 40's.

The fairgrounds were rainy and muddy, so we stayed mostly in the vendor barn, and shopped til the budget cried "uncle"!   Here is the haul:

From Creatively Dyed Yarns this is 70%wool, 30% seacell fiber in color, Plankton.

From Kai Ranch: this is overdyed black kid mohair:

This is a raw Jacob fleece, which is very clean since it was coated.   The spots are very distinct and the colors of white, black, and gray are even divided throughout the fleece.  

It is a little over two lbs, raw, and it seems to be very soft for a Jacob.   Of course, I have to finish the Shetland fleece I started earlier this spring first...and to help out with that I bought this:

A used Louet drum carder from Fire Ant Ranch.   This was Suzanne's personal carder that she is parting with since she uses an electric carder now.   She took the time to demo it and with the savings, I couldn't resist.  Even though it is about 15 years old, it is solidly built, finished well, and only a few of the pins are bent.  In case I forget how to operate it, there are etched instructions in 5 languages on the front and the back!

  
On Sunday, we spent  most of the day watching the 4 teams at the sheep to shawl competition.   I must have been so mesmerized by it all, since I failed to take one photograph.   Teams of 5 people: one weaver and 4 spinners started with washed fleece and a warped loom and proceeded to spin yarn and weave a shawl in about 5 hours.   There were 4 teams this year and the finished results were vastly different from each other, but each beautiful in its own way.  It might be fun to be on a team in the future...hmmm something to think about.

4 comments:

Iron Needles said...

Love your FLS! Very, very nice. I was actually looking at the Strauch, but decided to rent a carder from the Weaver's Guild I have joined for the time being.

The Jacob looks fun. I bought a CVM/Corriedale cross.

Sorry we didn't get to see each other.

~ Phyllis ~ said...

Congrats on the carder. You will have so much fun with it.
The swift moving water is a bit scary looking. Hope it has subsided.

Laurie said...

Your pictures of Estes Park brought back many fond memories of a trip I took there almost 30 years ago. It was over Labor Day weekend and we stayed in Rocky Mtn. N.P. - and it snowed.

Martin said...

excuse me, Lizzy... could you be so kind to tell me how much you paid for that Louet carder?

I own one and I want to sell it in a fair price!

:)