Hello From Estes!

I am writing from this from our room in the Appenzell Inn in Estes Park, Colorado.  Glory and I are here for the 29th annual Estes Park Wool Market.  I taught a math class for knitters and crocheters yesterday.  Glory is helping direct people to their classrooms and to lunch.  We get to do some shopping at the preview tonight and tomorrow is the llama, alpaca and sheep events.  I love this festival and this year we are staying at a wonderful place.  I recommend the Appenzell Inn to anyone who is coming to stay in Estes.  They have breakfast in the morning and a smores bar around a real campfire each night.  It is clean and conveniently located, even with all the constructions this year.

I have finished many projects since I last shared with you.  I will share quickly each on here with a picture or two and a link to the Ravelry page so you can get more info on a pattern or yarn.

I have finished my market bags and brought them for hopping this weekend.  I think I will keep making more and maybe get to the point that I can use them to replace all the plastic bags when I go grocery shopping.

I finally finished Mom's Shawl.  Now the surprise can be revealed.  It is a hard color to photograph and get the details but they are there.  She loves Prince the artist.  I grew up listening to him.  One of her favorite songs is "Diamonds and Pearls".  I looked at the lyrics and put this shawl together.  The edging says "diamonds and pearls" in Braille letters.  The very center is the Prince symbol.  The 4 corners are the male symbol, diamonds, pearls and then the female symbol.  I chose the color because it is how I remember the color of the CD case though it is not, and because it is a color she loves.  I layered different color of Kool-Aid to achieve it.

I also finished these socks.

I finished my first two test knits for this year.  Pretty much ever, the last test knit I did was in 2006, this little piece, which my 16 year old son still has.

This is the All Things Spring Shawl from Annie Lupton.

This is the Mauve and Dangerous Wrap from Wendelika Cline.

I am working on the sweater still and have picked up another one from Annie Lupton.  Another shawl, that I will detail more because of the work I did to change the yarn weight for my rendition.

I have washed and labeled all my woollies to put them away for the summer.  I wash mine now  because then when it starts to get cold I can just pull out what I want to wear and it's all ready to go.  The labeling is new this year.  I have decided that I want to be able to share some basic info when I wear something if someone asks about it.  On these tags I put the pattern name and the yarn I used.  I also include the fiber content so I know how to care for the piece after I have worn it.

By placing the tag on the safety pin first and then the garment, the tag will never have to leave the pin again to remove the garment.  I also wanted to be consistent in where I placed the tag so for directional shawls and any thing with sleeves I place the tag on the left side or sleeve.  I didn't use the pins to hold pairs together.  My box gets jumbled on occasion and I didn't want to chance grabbing only one sock and possibly tearing a hole in the other because it had been eaten by the piece below it.

All the pieces are then put into totes that are almost air tight.  My socks are rolled and put into clear totes with a moth ball packet.  The other items are put in this tote from Lowe's with 2 moth ball packets.  So far so good.

Join me next week to see pictures from the Wool Market, results of Sheep to Shawl and a great sock tip my mom taught me recently.

Have a blessed weekend!