Fiber Fool

As I mentioned yesterday I was also at the wool market on Sunday. I met up with Cathy, M, and B in Loveland and rode with them the rest of the way up. After last year’s adventure post-Estes with Chris I don’t really trust my car to take me much outside the city limits. We left Loveland about 9:30am or so and arrived at the fairgrounds mid-morning. We were there only about 20 minutes - all of which were spent at the Plain & Fancy booth when I realized that the person who so rudely bumped into me when the vendor area was not at al crowded had knocked my WIP bag off of my camera bag.

Since the bumping was totally unnecessary and seemed nearly deliberate I was convinced the bag and its contents were purposefully stolen. I was sick. Inside I had the remainder of a ball of Textiles a Mano Wuxi (50/50 wool/silk - gorgeous and shiny AND soft), a finished glove (that did need frogged to fix some stuff) and about 2/3 of gloves mate. A design I was doing for Textiles a Mano. In fact, that was the whole reason I had my WIP bag with me. I wanted to show Laura what I was working on since I didn’t quite get it finished in time for Estes.

Grayce and Ken and their son were nearly as upset as I was. I traced my steps all the way back to the car and M even opened up the car to double check that I didn’t loose it in there. No luck. But finally there was nothing else to really be done but try to enjoy the rest of the day at the market. So, Cathy let them know where we were headed next in case it showed. Well, Plain & Fancy went well beyond the call of duty and they tracked down the lost and found. They thought they had found the bag and their son tracked down us in the alpaca tent and described it and it wasn’t mine. Maybe 30 minutes or so later he found us AGAIN and said it had been turned into the office! I have to tell you, if I had my checkbook or more cash on me I would have brought home much, much more of their yarn than the two skeins I bought. I like their product as do many, but checking with the office at all, let alone multiple times was amazing and something you don’t often find people do these days. Then add the effort of tracking us down on the fairgrounds twice too!

I did also get to enjoy seeing the sheep to shawl contest in progress (above). I’d never watched one, let alone knew anyone who participated! I never did hear which team won though. Kristi, who won? Then we left the fairgrounds and had lunch at Grubsteak in downtown Estes. That was fantastic! And not only did M drive us to the market, but he bought all of us lunch! I have to say that Sunday was my day, LOL! We returned to the grounds and did much of our animal drooling after lunch.

It was a totally different experience going to the market with Cathy as she knows totally different people there than I. So I got to meet some great fiber people like the Benders (with whom I share an alma matter - go figure) and got to really chat and get to know Grace more. Sunday is a totally different experience than Saturday (especially Saturday morning) with things being much less crowded and much more laid back. You weren’t taking any business away from anyone by chatting so I got to visit with Laura and my friend Kathy (up the canyon Kathy as we call her around out house to distinguish between the two different fibercentric C/Kathies).

All in all, a great weekend and as usual a great wool market - not that I can compare it to any others, mind you, but a good time was had by me :-)

I went up to Estes on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I caught a ride with Amanda. We arrived just in time for the vendor barn to open and dropped off some things for Laura at the Textiles a Mano booth before cruising the vendors. The vendors were mostly the same as previous years - Intelacements, Brooks Farm, Textiles a Mano, Wooly Designs, Magpie Woodworks, Susan’s Fiber Shop, Red Barn, Bliss Merino, La Plata, Shuttles, Switzer, Northwest Looms, as well as some breed associations and a handful of finished woolen wear booths.

I did most of my shopping damage on Saturday. I went with a shopping list to pick out some yarn for the scarf grandma ordered for Christmas and some fiber for a commissioned spinning and design project (above). I got both of those things and two impulse purchases - an 8oz red alpaca roving bump from Stargazer Ranch and some mohair locks (below) so I have something to process whenever I choose the hand combs mom said I get for Christmas last year.

I ran into quite a few people while roaming the vendor barn. In fact, pretty much everyone I had hoped to see at the blogger meet-up. So, when it came time for the blogger meet-up I was my usual wallflower self and just watched it for the most part. I know Kristi, Alyson, and Becky got a kick out of being a part of the meet-up on lookers as others were taking group photos and the like. Alyson in particular was amused that the “organizer” was looking on rather than participating. I didn’t even take photos of the group photos being taken :-) Oh well!

While the meet-up was taking place Amanda was helping the overcrowded Textiles a Mano booth. Once she could get away from there we headed through town to eat at the Big Horn restaurant (that wasn’t a specific destination, just an uncrowded option that had good greasy spoon sort of food). After that we wandered next door to the Glassblower’s Studio where I think I made my favorite purchase of the market - yes, not at the actual market.

I think they may become closures on some felted bags at some point in time.

After that we headed back to Fort Collins where the flurry of the market got me to pull some handspun off the wheel (that has been there since December I believe) and get it oiled and ready to go again. Tomorrow I’ll share Sunday’s unexpected excitement…

Finally, a week after my planned release date the stars have aligned to allow me to upload the PDF file to the Ravelry store so that the file can be served to those who purchase the pattern.

This isn’t just another sock pattern. This is a sock pattern with a purpose. A pattern that has lots of personal experience in it. It is a pattern with a story that I hope will do some good for others.

In the later winter of my eighth grade year my mom boarded a plan for New Jersey where she was to stay for an entire month, leaving my dad and my sister and I to fend for ourselves with help from the extended family as needed. My mom was spending a month in Morristown, New Jersey at a special school. She went to Seeing Eye to be trained to use and to take home a Seeing Eye Dog™ (dog guide is the correct generic term if you are unsure whether the dog came from Seeing Eye or not). But her first dog, Sootie, was a black lab who loved the entire family and was as much a part of the family as any of us.

After getting Sootie mom’s world expanded greatly. She has always had a very independent spirit, but living 7 miles outside of a small town on a dairy farm does not lend itself to being terribly self-sufficient. With increased independent mobility mom took on many new obstacles such as learning to use a computer with a screen reader (this was in the DOS 3.1 days). Once she got fairly proficient in computing she even got an associates degree from the area community college.

Today she has had her second dog, Gaston, for about 5 years. She now works part time for the family farm. She speaks to any area church groups, clubs, and scout troops that ask her as long as she can secure transportation. She is also active in a book club at the public library and has been a mentor. All of these she did little or none of before getting Sootie or Gaston. She even travels alone to Colorado to visit me and takes the shuttle so we don’t have to drive to the airport!

The Seeing Eye was the first school in the US to provide dog guides to the visually impaired. Students pay $150 for their first dog. This includes not only the dog and some of the initial supplies such as the special harness and leashes, but also their airline ticket and room and board for the duration of their training session. Successive dogs cost only $50. Students are not allowed to raise funds to pay for their dogs as it is a method to ensure that the new owners can afford the annual upkeep of their dogs. But, as you can imagine $150 (let alone $50) doesn’t even come close to covering airfare let alone the year’s care of the dog during training or the room and board for 28 days. Thus The Seeing Eye is a non-profit organization seeking funds to continue this service for visually impaired persons across the country.

The last I knew, there were ten schools (including Seeing Eye) around the country providing dog guides to the visually impaired. Each school operates a little differently, but I believe they are all non-profit organizations and thus in need of funds to support their work. Some, such as Leader Dogs, are connected to national service organizations to aid in that effort. Many, like The Seeing Eye, are independent. Thus, for every sale of the Guided by Love Socks I will be donating the net profits to further this cause of increasing mobility for visually impaired persons.

More details about the pattern specs are on the pattern page here and at Ravelry. This pattern was met with lots of positive response when first added to the Ravelry database last week (over 80 favs and 60 queues), however due to the technical glitches uploading the PDF not being fixed until yesterday I’m afraid most of the buzz has passed before the pattern could be purchased. I’d really appreciate any assistance in spreading the word about this pattern. I’d really like to be able to make a sizable donation.

Animals seen at the 2008 Estes Park Wool Market! Thanks to some generous friends who let me ride up with them I got to attend Saturday morning and a good share of Sunday as well. I’ll post more about the market as the week progresses.

Well, I was planning on releasing a pattern on Wednesday (Tuesday afternoon on Ravelry), however something is messed up with my storekeeper privileges over there and I am currently unable to upload PDF files. Seeing as how this week is TNNA and Knitter’s Connection and the people who can help me at Ravelry are attending those two things I’m unable to release the pattern. Some of you may have aleady seen it on Ravelry. I’ll be sure to make a post here on the blog when it is actually purchasable, so stay tuned.

In the meantime that means I once again have little to blog about. So, it seemed the perfect opportunity to take part in the Flick Mosaic Meme that is going around…

One of those is even my own photo! In fact, I have a few where my photos appeared on the first page. If you are even slower than I and haven’t seen the meme yet, here is the low down…

The Concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I was pretty literal with everything. For the high school I had to leave “high school” off to get any hits and for the flikr name I left off the number portion. Of course my answers to a lot of these questions change rather frequently, but these represent my answers as of this morning.