Playing at the Wool Market

Was a busy weekend for me. I’ve been working away on the crochet design I showed you last post, but also drove over to Estes Park for the Wool Market on Saturday. I was a little late getting out the door because my boys didn’t want me to leave. They are so funny about me taking off for the day. They basically ignore me when I am home all day, but when I leave it’s lots of hugs and worry about when I am coming home. Figures I would have goofball kids.

The drive over to Estes Park from my house is gorgeous, I was tempted to stop a couple of times to take photos. I didn’t though since I was meeting my friend Brenda there and was already late. It rained on me for part of the 40 minute drive, fortunately the rain was gone by the time I reached the fairgrounds where the Wool Market is held.

Brenda was already in the Vendor Barn, which is actually much fancier than one would normally consider a “barn” to be. I walked thru looking for her and caught up with her at the Stitchin’ Den booth. Brenda is allergic to animal fibers so she was checking out the massive display of Intrelacements Rayon yarn that the Stitchin’ Den had at their booth. The choices of colors were almost overwhelming.

I fell in love with this gorgeous blue colorway called “Sturgeon Bay”. Unfortunately they didn’t have it in the large hanks, but they did have 2 of the 500 yard hanks. I’m not entirely sure what it will be when I crochet it up, but it will be a gorgeous color whatever it becomes.

Brenda was having too hard a time deciding on which color to purchase, so we decided to walk around and look at some of the other vendors and displays before she would pick out her yarn. We found this cool display around the corner from the Longmont Yarn Shoppe booth.

Seems like there were a lot of vendors with hats on display. I tried on this hat and Brenda took my photo so I could see what it looked like. I didn’t purchase it though since my hat collection at home is getting a bit out of hand, and I wasn’t that “in love” with it.

My friends at Bijou Basin had a booth and I stocked up on some more of their wonderful “Allure” fiber wash. Love this stuff and have just about finished the large bottle I purchased last year at the Wool Market. I also couldn’t resist this fun T-shirt, since it made me laugh when I saw it. I love fiber themed T-shirts and I purchased a large enough one that I can wear it over my yoga pants that are basically my uniform at home.

I had passed the Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins booth on my search for Brenda earlier and this bag had caught my eye. I’m a big fan of Laurel Burch’s artwork. So when Brenda and I were exploring we went by there again and I had to have a closer look at the bag. It’s a handy size and I finally succumbed to temptation and made it mine.

The bag has all kinds of fun little details, like the zipper pull for the bag is a Laurel Burch cat. The outside also has 2 pockets on the ends that are the perfect size for my phone.

I really like that the interior of the bag is mostly white and there is a generous sized zippered pocket. This bag will work well as a project bag and can do double duty as my handbag for the conference show this summer.

This fun little ceramic piece is a felting tool. It acts as a mini-washboard for wet felting. I’m thinking it is going to be perfect for some of my felting projects that I will be playing with this summer. I also liked that it looked a bit like an insect.

So I didn’t get thru the Wool Market visit without spending some money, but I stayed fairly close to my budget. At least I only bought 2 hanks of yarn. Funny thing after my ode to wool last post, I didn’t purchase any wool fiber at the market this year.

Now it’s back to crocheting on my latest project and tackling some “spring” cleaning since the warm weather finally decided to show up. I spent part of today working in the backyard. There is a Juniper bush that needs to come out and I was prepping it for himself to take the chain saw to it. I suspect I will be feeling some muscles I haven’t used in awhile tomorrow.