Grand fiber fun!

This weekend is the annual Estes Park Wool Market and I had the pleasure of attending.  It's been awhile since I've been able to due to one thing and another so there were a few changes.  It's grown for one thing.  There were many folks I knew from year's past and new ones to meet.  Naturally there was fiber in a vast array of forms.

Surprisingly (to me) there were fewer hand-dyed vendors this year and none doing anything like a ColourWave.  Hand-dyed lace weight in general was limited.  Good to know.  Nevertheless and no doubt of little (ok, none?) surprise, I was able to find some lovely goodies that just had to come home with me :-).  In fact there were many I left behind!

Shown in the photo above is my unspun fiber loot and oh what loot it is!  The balls of undyed roving are Polworth which I have had in mind to try ever since Bad Cat Designs posted about her adventures with it awhile back.  The center bag of brown roving is one I have resisted the lure of for years and finally now I gave in - 15.4 micron Paco-Vicuna from Deer Valley Alpaca.  Incredible stuff, so very soft and hard to come by!  I offer you a close up below from the lovely 75% Silk/25% Angora & Angelina roving I picked up from the lovely and kind Sharon of Woodlake Woolies

Pictures do not do these fibers justice - I wish you could feel them, they are all so soft and delightful.

Lest you be shocked at the astonishing will power (I failed to show, lol), let me reassure you, I did indeed buy yarn! And such lovely yarns, petting and special projects will be necessary to do them justice.

 Jeny of Jeny Originals talked me into the lovely skein of kid mohair/silk/nylon in a lovely blue hand paint shown above and the luscious deep green, silky soft skein of Silk/Merino/Sea Cell shown below!  Brooks Farm Yarn had a lovely variety of fingering and worsted weight yarns that were glowing with color.  I found a couple of skeins of "Ellie" that had to come home with me, the slate blue in the center above and the coppery to green shown below.  Textiles A Mano had some gorgeous cashmere & silk blends along with some silk that I resisted but I did give in to the water-color skein above in La Jolla yarn.

Finally, the piece de resistance of the yarns, I met the wonderful Ron & Theresa Miskin of the Buffalo Wool Company and just had to give in to the lure of the gorgeous sage green skeins shown above of their "Lux" yarn. Buffalo down, cashmere, silk & tencel adds up to a soft, strong & shiny, lace weight yarn.  Of course it had to come home!  Ron & his father worked together to start the original Buffalo Gold line and they know their fiber properties very well.  Absolutely lovely stuff and if you get the chance you should try it.

A fabulous way to spend a day and throw the budget out the window.  It was worth it.