Summer is gross here. It isn’t even officially summer for a couple more days and I want it to end. Temperatures have been in the 90s in Kansas City for weeks and there has been little rain. That new sod we got a couple months ago is just so, so sad. We decided to abandon our browning yard for a week and went to Estes Park, where it was still kind of warm, but so much less hot and humid than here.

We did our usually Colorado stuff on this trip. We hiked in Rocky Mountain National Park, Mike took some pictures, I did some crochet, and we just had fun in nature. I got a wildflower identification book so I could stop driving Mike crazy with my “What kind of flower is that?” questions:

Yup. It’s a flower.

The Estes Park Wool Market was going at the tail end of our trip, and Estes Park was celebrating Fiber Week leading up to it. Much of the town was yarn bombed in celebration:

The FACE of Fiber in the Rockies exhibit also opened while we were in town, and we stopped by to check it out. So cool! There were so many gorgeous pieces in the exhibit, and there were so many different kinds of fiber art on display. The group’s Facebook page has some good photos of the award recipients’ pieces. I think my favorite pieces were by artist Melody Money. Go look at her website immediately.

If there is a wool market, it is a good bet there is going to be yarn to buy, and I came home with a few treasures:

The browns on the left are skeins of handspun alpaca by Chris Switzer of Switzer-Land Alpacas that I picked up before the wool market at The Weavers Attic in downtown Estes Park. This yarn is so soft. I have one of the skeins on my shoulder right now and I pet it every so often. I love them.

The big, plushy orange and gray toned yarn on the upper right is from Fiber Optic Yarns out of Ohio. Again, this yarn is freakishly soft and I love petting it. I also love orange and gray, so I am happy.

The orange and teal yarn in the lower right (yup, I like orange) is from Western Sky Knits in Montana. Even before I saw the name of the colorway on this one, I thought, “Oh! It’s like goldfish in a bowl!” I nailed it because this one is called “Fishbowl.”

That’s what I did on my not-quite-summer-yet vacation. Yay!

Until next time,
Annie