The Animals!

Despite my camera’s best efforts at thwarting me from taking pictures while at the Wool Market in Estes on Saturday, I ended up with over 50 pictures before the end of the weekend (this included a fun round of mini golf and some arcade excitement with some good friends of ours on Saturday night)…

I think my favorite was the alpaca tent where I made several friends…

Available in color or black & white.

This Suri alpaca was so cute I just wanted to leap into his pen and give him a big hug!

Also available in color or black & white.

I also enjoyed the goat tent. There were many young kids, though they tended to be too active to capture well in the somewhat low light. But, some of the adults were lazy enough in the heat to capture on film…

I couldn’t resist this guy’s charms with the fun cockeyed ears!

This is available in black and white as shown, or also color.

Who could resist these curly locks? Not me!

Also available in black & white as shown or color.

Check out these massive horns!

Available in color only.

It was such a blast! So much better than some of the other hobby related conventions I’ve been too. I can’t wait to go back again next year, and perhaps I’ll make it to some of the other animal tents next time!

Yet More Wool!

I undoubtedly bought the most fiber from Bountiful (see a snapshot of their booth in Monday’s post). There is an 8oz wool and Angelina blend in purple there, 8oz of a lambwool/angora blend from Louet in natural nearly white and an 8oz sampler of various color wool/Angelina blends. Most of these were marked down around 50% off and I got them so I’d have fiber I felt comfortable just practicing with. Though I have a feeling once I’m through the 8 oz sampler bag I’m going to be a bit tired of Angelina for a while, LOL!

~ .8 oz, 20 yds from Bountiful Grab Bag
Singles, Steam Set on Niddy Noddy

I had some issues while spinning these singles. One was that I was sitting in a rocker/glider in the basement with the wheel on carpet so I wasn’t treadling smoothly and evenly. Another was that DH was sitting right next to me doing a very poor job of pretending to read Harry Potter and instead staring *very* intently on my spinning and the last being that there was no form of distraction at all - no music or television so I was a little too intent upon the spinning process I think. But, over all, I’m pretty happy with these.

I did use our professional clothes steamer we got for Christmas to steam set the twist while it was on my niddy noddy. However, if I’m going to be using that technique much I think I’m going to want to build a PVC version as I don’t want to expose my gorgeous Cherry Wood one (pics later in the week) to that hot steam on a regular basis.

~1.2 oz, 30 yds from Bountiful Grab Bag
Singles, Wet Set (dried with a .8 oz weight)

This was much better! I moved to the back row of our stadium seating in the basement - a futon on a platform DH built and covered with left over Pergo. I also spun it when DH was not home and had the television on for a bit of distraction so I wasn’t overly intent upon my spinning and was more relaxed.

Because of the steam and the wood niddy noddy I wet set this and it did fluff considerably more than the steaming produced, but it didn’t even out my overtwist as much as the steam setting. There is also of course my lack of patience and the 24 hr dry time. Why that bothered me when I’m not up to using these singles anyway I’m not sure, LOL!

Speaking of using these singles - because they are from a grab bag there really aren’t long enough lengths of any of these fibers and I don’t care to ply the different colors together. But, I want something that properly uses these singles for posterity sake. I have a friend who is crocheting these gorgeous little bowls, but I’m thinking the singles are likely not bulky enough. But I was thinking that would make a lovely little project of my first singles. Anyone else have any suggestions?

In Fact, I Do Have Wool!

Margene asked if I have any wool, and of course she knows the answer is undoubtably yes…

She and Snow are great enablers! :-) Okay, so after I folded to the pressure of Suzie’s lovliness I didn’t need much encouragement as I only had about 4 oz of roving to my name and I knew that wasn’t going to last me too long.

I was good and the only prepared yarn I bought was some supermerino sock yarn from Bonker’s.

I wanted some lovely sage lace weight from Grayce of Plain and Simple Wool Co. but by the time we finished our first circuit of the vendor building it was gone! Though I believe she had told Margene that she was working on a web site so I’ll try to patiently wait for it. It would make a lovely Frost Flowers, but I’d have to sell my first born to pay for enough of it and since we aren’t having kids I guess I’ll have to use it for a more modest shawl when I can get some :-)

Traci had such fun colors in her rovings, it was hard to pick. But I took this home in addition to the yarn…

I was hoping she would have some issues of her art zine, Tub Legs with her, but of course those aren’t fibery related and she didn’t have room. So, once I’ve recovered I guess I’ll have to order them. I’ve heard amazing things about it and I know she has lots of photography and digital articles in it frequently so I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.

More in the fiber story to come tomorrow…

Excited Exhaustion!

After much…

A little animal looking (pics to come later in the week)…

We had…

That trunk contains the complete haul of Snow, Margene and myself.

This is mine…

Yep, I got the Majacraft Suzie Pro. I *love* it, though need to not spin when DH is around at the moment. He keeps make rude comments about the rustic quality of what I’m spinning. I don’t think he understands that it is not something that is going to miraculously be wonderful now that I have a wheel. He was so impressed with my knitting when I first started, but I think he conveniently forgets that I had learned as a child, so I wasn’t a *real* newbie. My hands and arms and wrists all knew the movements, they just needed reminding.

Snow and Amanda (and the people I bought the wheel from, though they could have been buttering me up to make the purchase) have commented on my quick learning of spinning. Yes, it isn’t perfect and if you want perfect you should buy commercial yarn. But, before I bought the wheel I had logged roughly only 4 hours of wheel time - 3 on Snow’s Traveller and 1 on Amanda’s Little Gem. So, I’m trying to ignore DH’s comments the best I can and not egg him on by spinning in front of him.

I’m trying to be a responsible working adult today *sigh* so I haven’t spun since yesterday afternoon and I need to sign off soon and get to more serious work. But, don’t worry, I have a lot more to report throughout the week!

Oh, if you have favorite blogs that include spinning, please let me know! I’ll need to be adding those to my bloglines!

Breathe!

Okay, I’m excited beyond belief for the wool festival. Though I’m partially scared of the crowd too, LOL!

Tonight, I get to enjoy a wonderful Italian dinner at a great locally owned restaraunt (in fact, we had our wedding reception there) with Margene, Snow, Amanda, Ashley, Linsey and three of our respective SOs! I can’t wait to meet Margene though! It’ll be my first time (aside from Snow) meeting a knit blogger!

I had hoped to have some interesting pics to show today, but there hasn’t been much in the way of knitting time aside from SnB and combine that with several diffrent snags on two different designs and I really have nothing worth photographing.

Assuming I actually get to go to Estes tomorrow I should have some pics on Monday! Though it seems there are some things conspiring against my getting to Estes, so we’ll have to see.