Getting ready to go to Estes was interesting at best. The garage floor carpeted with wool

and boxes. Grandpa disappearing into the back of a wool packed truck and trailer.

Everybody running every which way. Glad I was at work that day.

After we had everything packed we went straight to bed as we had to move out early for the long drive to Estes Park. And boy did we leave early. Friday morning we woke up 4:30 AM

and we were out of the house in half an hour. It was still too early for me I fell asleep as soon as we got into the truck. I didn’t wake up until we reached Cameron pass in Colorado. What a surprise I had when I looked out the window and it was snowing!

Unfortunately the beautiful snow changed to rain and lasted all the way to Estes. It was

kind of a dismal day as there was a blanket of grey covering the sun. If the booths hadn’t been inside it would have been a miserable day and everyone’s stuff would have gotten wet.

When we reached the fairgrounds in midmorning there was already a beehive of activity within the building that the booths were located. There were steady streams of people walking through the doors with boxes and bags piled so high in their arms that they could barely see where they were going.

The most interesting part of that day was when people started to show up to buy stuff and

most people weren’t ready. People weren’t supposed to be there yet! The wool market didn’t open till the next day. Later on we were told that the advertising had printed a date wrong and

Many of the people at the wool festival used the wool from their own sheep. Joanna Gleason was one of the people who owned and processed wool from her sheep. She has owned sheep for twenty years and started her own business called Gleason’s fine woolies. Everything in her booth was made from her fiber. It was rather fascinating to see what she had made. There were stuffed animals, pillows, roving and all sorts of other stuff. This was in all the booths. You could barely drag yourself away from it.

Also a lot of people’s craft production was too great to use only their own wool so they had to find fiber elsewhere. Estes Park Wool Market was a great place to get supplies. Two remarkable ladies were Ann Brown and Letty Klein. They were selling their book on how to make braided rugs using roving and the rugs were beautiful. They were also relatively easy to make. Their style of rugs was very different from my Grandmother’s fleecewoven rugs in the booth next door.

Then after you had your fill of the booths it was fun to go out to the animal barns. I had a fun time in the sheep tent. In the sheep tent I got to watch a sheep shearing. It was interesting. Also it was kind of neat to see all the different breeds of sheep. My favorite was the black and White Jacob’s with their multiple horns.

There were Alpaca and goat tents as well. You could barely hear anything over the bleating in the goat tents. It was rather amusing to watch the kids butting each other. There were mostly Angora and Cashmere goats in the tents. The Angora goat’s coats were lovely after they were cleaned.

The alpaca tent was delightfully interesting. The animals were very curious. There were booths where you could purchase things made from Alpaca wool. Sometimes you could get permission to feel the wool on the Alpacas themselves.

The llama barns were full of activity. Animal handlers were busy getting their llamas ready for the shows. You had to be careful. You didn’t want to ruin somebody’s work by carelessly touching one of the llamas and messing their hair up.

And always the beautifully groomed bunnies. Angora Rabbits are so soft and fluffy, and this rabbit was very gentle. All the animals were very curious about those of us who wandered by.

On the last day of the wool market they held the Sheep to Shawl Contest. In this contest you could have four spinners and one weaver. The spinners would spin like crazy to get the yarn to

the weaver so she could get the rug woven. There were three teams this year. Sheep Thrills, The Laramie Fiber Guild, and Chutzpah. The shawls were beautiful this year. Sheep Thrills was the winning team came in first with this beautiful checked shawl, Chutzpah came in second and The Laramie Fiber Guild came in third.

This was my first trip to The Estes Park Wool Market, and it was almost overwhelming in things to see and do. It surely will not be my last.