current projects

I'm such a fiber geek. I'm just showing off some of the lovely yarns I've been spinning up. The light brown stuff in the bag is baby alpaca and, while quite unclean, is the softest fiber I've ever spun. It just takes serious fussing to get all the vegetable matte out of it (grass-type stuff). This also shows pictures of some beautiful colored yarns. I bought some dyed roving (50% wool/50% mohair) and spun it up. Then I plied it with undyed merino to produce a marled yarn. It is just delightful. I love spinning.

Llamas and Alpacas, oh my!

Another magical day. I spent all summer spinning the fiber of Lumina, a black alpaca. It was so much fun. I got to visit the farm where Lumina lives and got to meet her! She's in the bottom picture, the black alpaca with a fair amount of white on her neck (her brother Nigel is in more of the pictures, looks very similar but only has bits of white on his neck). I gave her a carrot and she spent the rest of the visit following me around. Now, I know she was looking for another carrot, but it felt like she liked me and it was so endearing! I traded some of Lumina's spun-up fiber for more fiber and got to choose to take Nigel's fiber. He's Lumina's full brother. I LOVED visiting Wierworld (the farm) and meeting the llamas, the alpacas, and the wonderful owner. To see the llamas and alpacas roaming around, grazing in the meadow, stampeding past me to get to the meadow.... it was a magical day.

yarns

The light hank is 100% cotton. I always thought cotton would be really hard to spin. It's not. It's definitely more slippery than wool, but it isn't like I couldn't spin it. I haven't knit it up into anything yet, maybe a summer top? The medium is a coopsworth wool. EASY to spin. It is a bit scratchier than I'd like, but it was a joy to spin. Because it isn't super soft I'll probably use it for a blanket or something like that. I was a bit disappointed when it arrived in the mail, I ordered it thinking it would be more of a garment type of wool. Live and learn.

spinning and knitting

I spin. It is the most pleasantly relaxing thing in the world. In the picture I'm spinning cotton. Wool is much easier to spin. The sock I'm knitting is alpaca/wool. I'm knitting Gus. Gus is the honey-brown alpaca whose fiber I spun up and whose fiber is being turned into a sock. I got to meet Gus on the best homeschool field trip ever! We actually went down and visited an alpaca farm. Alpaca are insanely cute animals. With their big eyes and long eyelashes they look like they were invented by Disney. After meeting Gus I had to spin up some of his fiber and the socks I'm knitting are going to be the end result of that field trip.