So as it turns out, I'll be the superintendent at this year's Estes Park Wool Market Handspun Yarn Contest! Wahoo!! It was an interesting turn of events that led me to this position, but I am pumped and rarin' to go!
Prior to the publishing of this year's standards, the standards committee (me, Jill Graham - this year's judge, Sue Dowgiert, Barb Day, and Maggie Casey) tried to hash out what spinners in our area wanted out of a contest. We decided to vastly expand the categories, which now includes a whopping 23 classes, in order to cater to both modern and traditional spinners. I am so excited about this expansion, y'all. It means that you are no longer banned from having a little glitz in the skein (two categories now allow glitz!). It means that people who really enjoy spinning cellulose-only yarns can enter this year. It takes - in essence - a HUGE leap in encouraging creative spinning. Hooray!!
If you are a spinner and are planning to attend the festival, PLEASE enter your gorgeous skeins! That's plural! We're looking forward to an amazing contest this year, complete with some great prizes. And I mean great. :)
The website can be tricky to navigate, so if you click here and scroll down to Skein Contest Information, you can find the standards (plus entry form and judging form). You only need one Entry Form (please sign it at the bottom), but be sure to print multiple judging forms, if you're entering multiple skeins...each skein needs a judging form attached to it with strong thread, such as perle cotton. The cost for entry is $3 a skein.
Have questions about the contest? I've answered a number of them on Ravelry in this thread. If you don't use Ravelry or have any other questions, just leave a comment! I'd be happy to answer.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Boas, Ribbons, & Fluff
Well guys, I had a weird fall and winter. A string of sadnesses, including the loss of a dear friend from a long-fought battle with thyroid cancer, blindsided me. It was a difficult time. I'm generally an optimist, but man was it hard to stay cheery in the face of everything.
Then I managed to get out of Dodge with my friend Stephanie and two of her friends, taking off in October for Taos, NM for the annual Taos Wool Festival. I'd never gone before, and can I just say, it was a fantastic festival. Even the drive there was spectacular.
Might have fallen down and purchased a fleece. Whoops. Good thing there was Ron the Rickshaw Guy ready and waiting to rescue us. Carrying an entire fleece blocks back to the hotel would have been rough.
The whole thing is held outside (a novelty for this Estes Park Wool Market girl), and the weather was perfect, the grass was green, the air was crisp, and everything in every booth seemed like it wanted to go home with me. 
I showed a little restraint, I s'pose, purchasing some yummy roving of breeds I hadn't tried often, plus a few skeins of Plain and Fancy yarn. This was weird...I never purchase wool yarn (aside from sock yarn), since I should spin down my stash and yada yada. Well, this was pretty special yarn, perfectly spun singles, dyed an array of gorgeous colors. So I bought a bit. :)
Also a pair of soft and lovely gloves. :)
The most exciting thing to happen fiber-wise recently, though, has been getting handed the keys to my first fiber studio. EEEeeeee! I am beyond excited. Up until now, I've been working out of my teeny apartment, which works to a degree, but it might be nice to have a kitchen table in the breakfast nook instead of a loom. Also, handpainting roving and combed top has always been problematic, as I have to haul all the equipment and fiber outside (and downstairs) to paint on the picnic table. There's just not enough room in our apartment. So on March 2nd I spied an ad on Craigslist for an artist studio sublet. I emailed the lister, she showed me the property that afternoon, and one signed lease later, I'm the proud renter (for at least 9 months) of a sweet 187 sq. ft. studio! It's a little empty at the moment, but that will soon be remedied.
It's in an "artsy" complex of similar studios in North Boulder, so there's a little community to get to know, but what I'm really looking forward to is spreading out. Having everything consolidated in one spot, but having elbow room. And the dyeing, oh, the dyeing! I'll definitely be posting more pics when I have things mostly settled. Until then...
There is so much to be grateful for, though. I did get to see my family both at Christmas and in October, when we celebrated my grandmother's 90th birthday. Honestly, my Mimi is the cutest. Evidence:
Figure 3.1. Cute, definition of.
Also, I did very well at the Boulder County Fair in August, winning four champion ribbons (including grand champ, whoo hoo!), 5 blue ribbons, 1 second-place, and 1 third-place, all for seven skeins of handspun I entered on kind of a whim. I was pretty proud!
Figure 3.1. Cute, definition of.
Then I managed to get out of Dodge with my friend Stephanie and two of her friends, taking off in October for Taos, NM for the annual Taos Wool Festival. I'd never gone before, and can I just say, it was a fantastic festival. Even the drive there was spectacular.
Might have fallen down and purchased a fleece. Whoops. Good thing there was Ron the Rickshaw Guy ready and waiting to rescue us. Carrying an entire fleece blocks back to the hotel would have been rough.
The whole thing is held outside (a novelty for this Estes Park Wool Market girl), and the weather was perfect, the grass was green, the air was crisp, and everything in every booth seemed like it wanted to go home with me. 
I showed a little restraint, I s'pose, purchasing some yummy roving of breeds I hadn't tried often, plus a few skeins of Plain and Fancy yarn. This was weird...I never purchase wool yarn (aside from sock yarn), since I should spin down my stash and yada yada. Well, this was pretty special yarn, perfectly spun singles, dyed an array of gorgeous colors. So I bought a bit. :)
Also a pair of soft and lovely gloves. :)
It's in an "artsy" complex of similar studios in North Boulder, so there's a little community to get to know, but what I'm really looking forward to is spreading out. Having everything consolidated in one spot, but having elbow room. And the dyeing, oh, the dyeing! I'll definitely be posting more pics when I have things mostly settled. Until then...
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tour de Fleece - Basket o' Fun Morph
Day One:
Much of what I spun in its original form. From top left: Rambouillet, Hobbledehoy ArtBatt, braid of silk, handful of kid mohair locks from Kai Mohair, 1 lb. of Gulf Coast Native wool.
Day Six:
Starting to morph! Gulf Coast Native and Rambouillet have been carded, mohair and ArtBatt have been spun, silk still in original form.
Day Twenty-three:
All the finished yarns. Fibers from the Basket o' Fun have been spun, plus a skein of white Targhee, another ArtBatt, a braid of superwash merino from Cloudlover fibers, and the "get it off my bobbin so I can start spinning the good stuff" pink navajo-ply. In the middle is the bobbin of alpaca/feathers that I was working on at the close of the Tour.
Much of what I spun in its original form. From top left: Rambouillet, Hobbledehoy ArtBatt, braid of silk, handful of kid mohair locks from Kai Mohair, 1 lb. of Gulf Coast Native wool.
Day Six:
Starting to morph! Gulf Coast Native and Rambouillet have been carded, mohair and ArtBatt have been spun, silk still in original form.
Day Twenty-three:
All the finished yarns. Fibers from the Basket o' Fun have been spun, plus a skein of white Targhee, another ArtBatt, a braid of superwash merino from Cloudlover fibers, and the "get it off my bobbin so I can start spinning the good stuff" pink navajo-ply. In the middle is the bobbin of alpaca/feathers that I was working on at the close of the Tour.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tour de Fleece Days 12-21
Oh, hi. What the heck happened here? Did I forget to post about the end of the Tour? How...different. ;)
Let's see.
DAY 12
More silk! Neverending silk!
DAY 13
The silk ended after all. Whew. 238 yards, 1 oz., laceweight.
DAY 14
After days of spinning silk, it was so refreshing to spin a quick bulky two ply from some gorgeous handpainted superwash Merino top from Cloudlover. Colorway is Crusoe.
DAY 15
And then I took a break from sitting in my hotter-than-Hades apartment and headed to the Colorado Renaissance Festival with friends. Naturally I dressed up. And spun on my spindle. :) Here I'm spinning some hand-combed Rambouillet top.
DAY 16
Targhee, spun on my finally-fixed Victoria. Notice I got carried away shooting the breeze with the neighbors and forgot to move the yarn-guide on a regular basis. Fail.
DAY 17
Technically this was a Rest Day. But I did do a little carding. These loco batts have a little bit of everything from my scrap basket. Too bad my camera does not understand red. "Red? Does not compute. PINK!!!!!!!!!"
DAY 18
Towards the end of the Tour, yarns were really coming together. Here's the finished yarn I started on Day 15. I was so happy with it. I think I'll be knitting some sort of little baby sweater for a friend from this lovely. 208 yards.
DAY 19
The finished yarn from Day 16! So smooshtastic. Targhee wool, 461 yards, laceweight.
DAY 20
This was a fun, quick spin! It's another corespun Hobbledehoy ArtBatt. Only about 60 yards, but uberbulky, with interesting textures.
DAY 21
This pic is terrible, so I made sure it was small. It's hand-dyed alpaca with feathers inserted willy-nilly. I'm not sure how I feel about it, so I didn't get all gung-ho and finish it before the end of the Tour.
After Day 21, I kind of pooped out. I spent the next couple of days attending a wedding and then recovering from said wedding, and so my last photo was of the Basket o' Fun. I've decided to let the Basket o' Fun have its own special post. It's pretty cool to see it morph.
Let's see.
DAY 12
More silk! Neverending silk!
DAY 13
The silk ended after all. Whew. 238 yards, 1 oz., laceweight.
DAY 14
After days of spinning silk, it was so refreshing to spin a quick bulky two ply from some gorgeous handpainted superwash Merino top from Cloudlover. Colorway is Crusoe.
DAY 15
And then I took a break from sitting in my hotter-than-Hades apartment and headed to the Colorado Renaissance Festival with friends. Naturally I dressed up. And spun on my spindle. :) Here I'm spinning some hand-combed Rambouillet top.
DAY 16
Targhee, spun on my finally-fixed Victoria. Notice I got carried away shooting the breeze with the neighbors and forgot to move the yarn-guide on a regular basis. Fail.
DAY 17
Technically this was a Rest Day. But I did do a little carding. These loco batts have a little bit of everything from my scrap basket. Too bad my camera does not understand red. "Red? Does not compute. PINK!!!!!!!!!"
DAY 18
Towards the end of the Tour, yarns were really coming together. Here's the finished yarn I started on Day 15. I was so happy with it. I think I'll be knitting some sort of little baby sweater for a friend from this lovely. 208 yards.
DAY 19
The finished yarn from Day 16! So smooshtastic. Targhee wool, 461 yards, laceweight.
DAY 20
This was a fun, quick spin! It's another corespun Hobbledehoy ArtBatt. Only about 60 yards, but uberbulky, with interesting textures.
DAY 21
This pic is terrible, so I made sure it was small. It's hand-dyed alpaca with feathers inserted willy-nilly. I'm not sure how I feel about it, so I didn't get all gung-ho and finish it before the end of the Tour.
After Day 21, I kind of pooped out. I spent the next couple of days attending a wedding and then recovering from said wedding, and so my last photo was of the Basket o' Fun. I've decided to let the Basket o' Fun have its own special post. It's pretty cool to see it morph.
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