Driving home with four fleeces and various other goodies from Estes Park Wool Market 2023.
Last week I took a two-day workshop with Maggie Casey as part of the Estes Park Wool Market. All in all I spent four days up in Estes Park immersed in wool, sheep, yarn, and making. By Sunday afternoon I found myself driving down Big Thompson canyon with a huge smile on my face, wool fumes from the four fleeces in the backseat wafting around me. Even the irritation at dodging the tourists stopped in the middle of the narrow, winding, road to look at bighorn sheep didn’t penetrate the wool bliss.
I love diving into materials. And wool is a material that can do so much. I didn’t know this until I learned to spin. When I was learning weaving and tapestry, I used wool for weft because my teachers did. Once I started taking classes from Maggie and others and learned more about yarn construction and materials, I realized what a huge variety of sheep and thus wool exists on this planet. And it matters, especially when you’re making a piece of visual art.
Maggie’s workshop was called A fleece followed me home. It is all about working with raw fleece. Maggie was my first spinning teacher* and I’ll go to any class she is teaching. Her deep experience, pragmatic attitude, and insistence that (1) it is always the wheel’s fault and (2) the sheep are making more wool right now, is always reassuring. We played with fine, medium, and strong wool fleeces using cards and combs to prep and spin bits of them.
Piles of fleece!
So much excitement + handcards
Combing a longwool fleece
Fleece procurement at Estes Park Wool Market 2023
The class headed over to the vendor hall Friday afternoon for an early peek at the treasures that were there. Jennifer scored a big pile of fleece and as you’ll see, I came away with more than I can possibly spin before next year’s market.
Maggie taught me that it is okay to take a lock of a fleece you’re considering and go to the bathroom and give it a little wash to see if the dirt and lanolin on it washes out. Her lock indicated this fleece was a winner (I might have split it with her… for fleece #5).
Amy Wolf was the fleece judge at Estes Park Wool Market in 2023. Here she is examining a white fleece and showing us what happens when the tips get felted together.
A Jacob fleece being examined and judged by Amy Wolf. Did you know that Jacobs are supposed to be 60% white and 40% colored? Rolling out the fleece is the only way to judge that.
I was able to purchase two blue ribbon fleeces. One was this ram fleece from Sheep Feather’s Farm. The shepherd is Robin Phillips and I have now purchased many fleeces from her. I love her breed mixes and variety of colors. Her fleeces often have amazing crimp and defined lock structure. The ram is a two-year-old named Tim and his fleece is simply stunning. It won the spinners choice award as well as first in class and I was so happy to get to take it home. A huge thanks to Robin for her wonderful work with these animals. The photo is Robin and Tim’s fleece.
Here are the four fleeces I brought home with me. The two at the bottom are Lincoln from Aniroonz Sheep Company in Idaho. The one at the bottom right won best in class. I suppose I’m not surprised that there weren’t people fighting over these gorgeous Lincoln fleeces, but there should have been! It takes a tapestry weaver to want these amazing long locks. But that meant I had my pick of these beautiful Lincoln fleeces. This fleece will be pure white when washed. It is very dusty as these sheep tend to be, but a little bathroom test (thanks Maggie!) showed me that it will be a brilliant white with a staple of about 8 inches. Combs are in my immediate future. The fleece bottom left is another Lincoln from the same producer with some fantastic color and a much shorter staple.
Top left is a Dana Ruehlman fleece from Black Eagle Sheep. She is a popular producer and veterinarian in northern Colorado and I loved this silvery fleece. And top right is Tim’s fleece from Sheep Feather’s Farm with its marvelous colors and crimp. I have not decided what to do with the top two fleeces yet, but I have the tools and knowledge to try a few things and there is plenty of fleece there to allow some experimentation.
Here is that Lincoln fleece with one of the locks quickly rinsed out. After a proper washing it will indeed be very white.
Lincoln fleece from Aniroonz Sheep Company. Shepherd is Nancy Irlbeck of Moscow, Idaho.
Tapestry fork from Timber and Twine with braids from The 100th Sheep.
Of course I came away with a few other treasures from the market. I needed a Lock Pop and more bat roller refills from Clemes & Clemes. The beautifully dyed braids of The 100th Sheep from the skilled dyeing hands of Peggy Doney are always a temptation and two of them came home with me. And a variety of sheep-centric gifts and cards might have crept in as well.
The last and most exciting new tool I bought was from Timber & Twine from Fort Collins. They’re making tapestry forks as well as small Hokett-style looms with an ingenius clamp. They’re all gorgeous with incredible woodworking. I came home with the fork pictured below in front of a couple of Peggy Doney’s braids.
So lest you think this show is all about sheep fleece, let me assure you there are many other marvels to be experienced at the Estes Park Wool Market. There are sheep and goats and rabbits and alpaca and a whole llama show. There are sheep dog trials and horse and carriage rides, ice cream and lamb kabobs, and there is a whole vendor hall stuffed with yarn and other fibery things. It is simply a delight.
What is your relationship to the materials you use in your artwork? What sorts of things do you like to experiment with? Different inks, pens, paints? Different fiber content in warp or weft? New-to-you preparation or production methods? Let us know in the comments.
Maybe I’ll see you in Estes Park next June! You can keep tabs on next year’s workshops and the market at the Estes Park Wool Market website. The Market is run by the city of Estes Park and they do a fantastic job.
*Maggie Casey is the author of Start Spinning and is the owner of Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins. Shuttles closed its brick and mortar store in 2020 because Maggie and her business partner Judy wanted to retire, but Maggie still sells products and has a monthly spin in on Zoom. Maggie teaches spinning at many events all over the USA and if you ever get a chance to take a class from her, do it.