Please imagine wonderful pictures of the fun time that was had at the Monterey Wool Auction throughout this post.  Someone… *cough*… okay, I forgot the camera at home inthe rush to get out the door.

Got down to Monterey, picked up my mom, and the 2 of us were dropped off at the fairgrounds by The Husband, who then went off to do non-fiber activities.  Got signed in and got my auction number.  Had to wait a little bit ot get a listing sheet as they had run out.  Unfortunately, there were also some problems with the sheet in that several weights and prices listed were incorrect.  Thankfully, they announced them as each fleece came up and I made sure to double check on those fleeces I was interested in.

I decided this year’s strategy was going to be pick out a couple of really nice fleeces and concentrate on them.  One of the fleeces I picked out was also wanted by 2 of my friends, so we decided to split it because it was 10.5 lbs.  Sadly, we were outbid.

The next fleece I was super interested in was one of the champion fleeces.  I figured that I would be willing to pay up to $25/lb for it.  It came up and turned into a bidding war between me and someone sitting up front.  $25/lb came very quickly and I made a quick assessment — we hadn’t won the earlier, larger fleece for spliting, so I hadn’t spent any money yet, and I could go higher, but this would be it.  I kept bidding.  The price hit $30/lb, which I determined to be too rich for my blood.  The audience actually seemed to collectively let out their breath when the auctioneer said, “Sold!”

There was really only one more fleece I really wanted.  Thankfully, my friends who had also been interested in it, said it was okay for me to go after on my own.  It was only a 6.25 lb fleece, which is a little hard to split 3 ways if you lose a lot to processing.  I decided on my maximum bid and was quite happy when I won the fleece at a much lower price.  It’s a very pretty variegated grey fleece from Hobbit Hollow Farm.  I think it was a 1/4 blood.  It’s been turned over to Shari at Morro Fleece Works for processing, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I think it’ll be a very nice sweater for me.