Wool. Just the word is fun. Many of my Aussie friends refer to all yarn as wool. Though they have a wide range of yarns of various fibers available to them. It’s just what they call yarn. They have a lot of fun and sometimes confusing words for things, which gives us endless entertainment figuring out the translations. For most of us fiber arts types living in the USA though, wool is what comes off of sheep.

Yesterday I got a fun email from my next door neighbor Margie. She had some wool trimmings from her little herd of sheep that she wondered if I would like.

Um, YES!

This afternoon my oldest and I walked over to her house. She had a bag of trimmings for me. I’ll likely be using them in some of my needle-felting projects. First I’ll be doing a bit of cleaning though. I love all the colors of wool that came off her adult sheep and hope that some of these trimmings will be usable as outer layers on my needle-felted critters.

The rest of my day I’ve been playing with an idea for a new crochet design. I’m working with some yarn that I purchased from Newton Yarn Country at the Knit & Crochet Show in Spring 2009. I don’t even know if they still have this yarn in stock.

My yarn stash is a bit out of control, so I’ve decided I need to work up some of it. I am hoping I have enough to  make a lovely lightweight sweater for myself. I’m experimenting with my favorite stitch the V-stitch. But this time I’m working it stacked and using different increase ratios.

Tomorrow I am headed over to Estes Park to check out the Estes Park Wool Market. I’ll be meeting my friend and fellow designer, Brenda Bourg, over there. Not sure if I’ll be taking my family with me. They generally get bored with it all long before I’m ready to call it a day. I’m telling myself that I won’t be buying yarn this time, will see if I can hold out against all the temptations though.