Holly Marie Knits

I don't know if you remember my post about Jimmy the alpaca last summer. Well here he is again, only this time he still has his winter coat on. We had the opportunity of watching him get sheared last Friday. Mr. N. kindly gave us the fleece again this year. He simply keeps Jimmy for a pet, and since he has to be sheared every summer, well.....we don't mind the extra raw alpaca fiber!

He was a little nervous about approaching the shearing table. I think he remembered what it was all about from last year and was anxious to be sheared and feel the wind on his back again. But he was also quite shy, and a little skittish.

Once on the shearing table though, he was quite docile. His fleece was lovely this year, the seconds on his neck were quite long. We are keeping some of the seconds to process ourselves. But the bulk of the fiber will be sent out for processing to a mill that was recently recommended to us.

Due to my shoulder injury, and also the fact that we had to pick vegetable matter out of the fiber, this is my first skein of yarn from Jimmy's 2010 fiber. Alpaca has to be used within the first year our two of shearing so it does not become brittle and dry out. So before we dig into this years cleaner fiber, we should work with last year's fiber. However Mother has been cleaning through it and removing some of the excess VM, which is a tremendous help when spinning. Mr. & Mrs. N are excitedly (and patiently) waiting for items made from their alpaca. They were so surprised to find that I would make them something, I'm looking forward to presenting them with the end results of their alpaca's fiber. :)

One of my sister's was given an art batt for her birthday. She is not an advanced spinner yet and asked me if I would spin it up into yarn for her and then she could knit it. I was more then happy too, as I have never spun any type of art yarn before. It was definitely and interesting experience. The batt contained merino, mohair, firestar, bamboo, wendslydale locks, angora, and shredded silk sari ribbon. The added interest of the sari ribbon was probably my favourite part of the batt, it was so interesting to spin it!

I ended up with 2 skeins of heavy worsted weight yarn, about 214yards or so. I'm looking forward to seeing what my sister will make with the yarn!

I finally have pictures of the shawl that I made my Mother for Mother's Day. It is the Prairie Rose Shawl by Evelyn Clark. This is the 2nd shawl that I have made with this pattern and I enjoyed knitting it as thoroughly the second time as I did the first.

And lastly, this is a project that I would love to make! It is a KAL @ my cousin's LYS. If I lived closer I'd love to join in on it, maybe I can at least aquire the patten and use up little leftover bits of sock yarn. I'll let you know if I am able to get the pattern.