First up, pictures from my trip to 7th Heaven Alpaca Farm in June 2010. Fuzzy Head came with me to watch the annual alpaca shearing.
Holding down the first alpaca as they are finishing up and ready to flip the table back over. We missed the real action, we came in just as they were finishing.
The yarn selection available to purchase. Fuzzy Head is blocking the view of the yarn I ended up buying, pictured here:
This is a delightful alpaca blend. The tag was mega confusing on these because the two skeins were tied together with one tag that says 245 yards and 4ish oz, so I assumed that between the two skeins, that’s what I was getting. I weighed them only recently (when I got my yarn scale from Knit Picks, eeeeee!) and together they weigh just over 8 oz, so the tag was only for one of the skeins. I’m not sure exactly how many yards I have, but I’m hoping to make a pair of mittens and possibly a hat, but we’ll see.
This little baby alpaca was available for petting, but kids kept getting in the way. Kids ruin everything.
These fluffy ones were waiting in a barn for their turn, we left before we got to see them sheared.
This is the alpaca from the first picture, all naked and romping around in the field.My newest baby:
Hello spinning wheel. I love you. You’ve easily doubled my spinning speed. I powered through the rest of the bag of my rust coloured wool, which I have been working on since I learned to spin earlier this year. I carded the last of it over a couple days when I saw how quickly I was going through it with the wheel. Also pictured above is my yarn scale, on the little table next to the wheel.
This is my Alpaca Acres roving from Vixen, spun up over a weekend with my wheel, being turned into:
My very first handspun project! I’ve got a few skeins of my other hand spun yarns, but this is the first thing I’ve made with something I made. This will be a spiral cowl – a perfect little project for the amount of yarn I have.Thinking about Christmas presents now. Last year I was all about making gifts for everyone, and it nearly killed me. I had to plan all year to get everything made in time, and I had no time to work on my own projects. I would love to do that again, but I don’t have enough time now this year. I’ve got a few small projects picked out for gifts, but not for everyone. I’m trying to think of projects that are easy, that I could make for everyone, that they would get some use from. My first thought was felted potholders, but I’m still thinking about it and I wouldn’t be doing it for this year’s gifts. Any suggestions? Christmas presents for extended relatives this year will be home made red pepper jelly. I bought the canning jars last week and I’m just waiting for red peppers to come into season.
Happy knitting everyone!
Onward,
vrock
