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.

Already?

.....another Pretty Thing. My first one found a new home immediately with my grandmother! This one is another ColourMart yarn (they rock, what can I say?).....sorry about the fuzzy photo!

Modified the pattern for the DK (5 repeats), still on 3.5mm needles
Used ~114 yards/36 grams Colourmart 100% Extra-Fine Merino 15/44 DK (Midnight)

I've finally caved and ordered a little really lovely yarn from Land O Lace to add to the stash........I need socks. That's my story......and we'll ignore that really pretty skein of lace-weight for the moment (except that paired with black......it might weave up into a STUNNING shawl....hmmmmm).......



Just another little preview of what's up here:


Some gorgeous 50/50 merino/silk I'm spinning thanks to a project with Ms. Bad Cat.......

Fleegle's fault!

It IS. If she didn't have such lovely yarn I wouldn't buy more right? (yes, she ranks right up there with ColourMart and will custom dye! - but no worries, Richard, she doesn't carry the same yarns you do ;-) )


And if she didn't post about yummy patterns I wouldn't know about them and HAVE to add them to my collection of things that must be made! (No Two Snowflakes is quick to deliver, too)


.....tempt me with visions of lovely batts from Corghi Hill just too many times to resist .....




Yup, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Fleegle, the Great Enabler.......who is even NOW charting designs to map out an absolutely gorgeous (monster size) Shetland Shawl that currently is being voted to be name THE Susan for a KAL on Heirloom Knitting (Ravelry). There are so many stitches that a super fine yarn (52/2 or smaller) on teensy tiny needles are going to be quite necessary to do the full design. Like two skeins of Phoenix. Perhaps size 00 (1.75mm) or smaller........

You see?

("Small type" Disclaimer - I must add that naturally I'm just kidding.......there aren't too many bigger fans of personal responsibility/accountability than I ;-) )

More spinning fun!

Just a quick lil' post to show the finished sample skein of the "Snuggly" 50/50 Superwash Merino/Tencel on the left and the same fibers on the right in another sample skein made from fiber sent by my friend Judith. She overdyed the fiber and isn't it just a gorgeous color? Click on the picture and you can see it better......

The skeins are each approximately 4gr and the Snuggly is ~60 yards of 2-ply and the wine is ~54 yards, also 2-ply.

Does anybody have a super accurate scale they want to recommend? One that measures in less than 2gram increments. Less than 1gr increments might even be fun.....

A lovely new drop spindle.....

......means you just HAVE to play with fibers, right? The spindle is a gorgeous Featherweight Bird's Eye Maple Bosworth weighing in at a "whopping" 13 grams / .46 oz. I see more of these Bossie's in my future ;-).

The first pictures (below) are a wool blend of 80% Merino and 20% Tussah silk purchased long ago from Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins of Boulder, CO. Rather amazing how different it looks spun up and plied, yes?

The sample skein is approximately 4 grams and 48.5 yards long of 2-ply lace weight.






Look at these pretty colors, eh? Here & at the top of the post you see the spindle itself although the picture could be a bit better below. This is a super soft and shiny 50/50 Merino/Tencel blend from Dyeing for Colour. Since I'm not done spinning up the sample I shall wait to tell you more particulars including what I think of it.....


I've finished a couple of small projects that need posting and have many more projects including spinning and woodwork (yes, woodwork) to tell you about soon along with my adventures at the County Fair.......

But before I leave you today.....one more picture.....I have a friend who has just started spinning and I have assured her that she really WILL get better with practice, hehehe. This is not my VERY first yarn - I don't think I even have that, I couldn't see even calling it yarn! This, however, was right after or very close to it.......and while it at least looked yarn-ish it's still rather a far cry from the sample you see above. It's definitely chunky weight.....at least where it's not tiny little wire that should have fallen to bits, lol. (Luckily, my pictures have also mostly improved! Sorry this one's pretty fuzzy)