Estes Park Wool Market

Hello dear readers! Welcome back! Welcome to all the new subscribers and followers and a special thank you to my newest paid subscriber Miss M. I am grateful for your support! Sheep kisses to all!!!

The sheep are staying put better since we got that fence line patched up last week. My stress about getting a phone call that they are out by the road has decreased substantially. Plus, I actually got caught up with coat fixing!

The boy child was wandering around the pasture last Sunday and caught sight of two ravens divebombing something in the trees. He ventured closer to see what was going on. At first he thought it was a deer, until he got closer and ran on to a rather good sized bobcat.

He said to me “Ma, the eyes of Odin told me something was going on, and I did my best bear imitation to scare it off.” as he proceeded to show me his arms over his head, hands in a claw shape, and vocalized a bear bellow.

It apparently worked since he said the cat ran off at a high rate of speed.

And thus the predator truce still holds.

Have you ever been to the Estes Park Wool Market? It’s coming up in a few short weeks on June 7 & 8! Located in the Rocky Mountains in Estes Park Colorado, it’s an amazingly fun fiber show! They have vendors, class’s, demonstrations, fleece judging, skein judging, created item judging, shearing demo, fiber animal show and judging, food, and clean mountain air with beautiful views!

I caught up with my friend Laurette this week and picked her brain about what she was going to be up to at this years market.

Laurette, you and your amazing team have created a special project for the Estes Park Wool Market. What did you come up with?

This educational program is called Estes Park Wool Market Community Spin & Weave Shawl Project. It is June 7-8, 2025, two days of spinning and weaving a free-style shawl to be sold at a silent auction on Sunday June 8th at 12 noon.

How did this come about for you and your team?

The idea started hatching while we were at Estes Park Wool Market competing in their Sheep to Shawl competition a couple of years ago. That is supposed to be an educational program, and it is. But my heart was longing to go deeper into the education for the public, not just have them as observers of creating a garment from raw fleeces. Because Sheep to Shawl is a timed event, we didn't have the ability to let observers contribute to the making of the shawl or learn by working with us.

Please tell us about you and your wonderful team.

Last year I had Sue (who was the previous superintendent of the Sheep to Shawl competition) helping out as well as my delightful friends from the Des Moines Weaver's guild. This year, my longtime friend Janice will be my key helper, she has 14 years of Estes Park Wool Market attendance and is excited about making a valuable contribution to the future of fiber arts. Mark and Darla will be volunteering as well; they are natural and well-known teachers in this area. We also have many supporters (such as you, Fat Turkey Farms) who have and will be contributing beautiful high-end fiber to make this a truly luxurious garment.

What was your goal for this?

Give the public a taste of the camaraderie of a Sheep to Shawl competition, but with the opportunity to try their hands at spinning, carding, weaving. They will also be contributing to the making of the shawl which will be auctioned off, 100% of the proceeds of the shawl will be awarded that day to a youth who had entered handspun yarn or finished handspun projects to the skein competition.

Tell us about your experiences from the first year?

With the help of the Skein Competition Superintendent, we chose a recipient for the prize money before the Wool Market opened. This particular youth captured our respect and admiration because several skeins had been entered as well as a finished project, and we learned that the fleece had come from self-raised sheep. As the show progressed, a young man came to our booth and asked if he could spin with us, and he was a spinner already! In the way that fiber artists do, he started chatting while he was spinning and telling us about the three skeins and a finished project he had entered in the skein competition. What a thrill it was to work with him for several hours that day, knowing he would be amazed to learn later he was our prize winner! He quickly grasped the weaving we taught him and contributed quite a bit to weaving the shawl, doing a beautiful job. He took some breaks with his work to pull other children into our booth and taught them to spin as well. The shawl sold to an admirer who purchased it as a prayer shawl for her sister with cancer. She knew us and knew that I had been praying over this project. So amazingly perfect!

What do you hope for this time around?

We would love to continue to build relationships within the fiber arts community and sell the new shawl for even more than the $150 it sold for last year. What pleasure it will bring to have amazing fiber for people to handle and spin and weave into this beautiful shawl. We are also setting up a community winding station so folks can wind their newly purchased skeins into balls of yarn.

At the end of the wool market you auction off the shawl, where will the proceeds go this year?

100% of the proceeds of the silent auction will go towards youth who have entered projects in the Skein Competition. We will also be setting up a donations box to add to prizes for youth spinners. In previous years, the highest award was $20. This year we hope to raise $300 or more. This is made possible by the sponsorship of the City of Estes Park Wool Market and generous donations of fiber by local businesses and farms such as yours. Thank you!

Thank you, Laurette, for sharing such an exciting and fun educational project with us!

Folks if you happen to be able to go to the wool market, be sure to stop by and say hello to Laurette and her team, tell them I sent ya!

I wish I was able to go this year, but alas, it won’t happen! Too many other things that need attention here.

Here’s a throw back to our sheep to shawl team at Estes Park from many years ago.

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

Blessed Be!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you would like to leave me a tip or a donation to help keep the farm going, I would be grateful. I appreciate any and all support from my readers. Thank you for considering this, or by becoming a paid subscriber.