A Little Fiber Update

Hello there my friends! I am back with pictures of my finished alpaca/silk yarn! I only spun up 2 ounces so far. I'm not one hundred percent sure on the yarn weight, I haven't measured the WPI, but it looks to be around a fingering weight, 198 yards.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out, it is just what I was hoping it would be. I still have no plans for the yarn. For now it is decoration on the piano.

I used my hand cards to finish prepping the last 2 ounces of alpaca fiber and silk. I haven't started spinning it though. Right now I am trying to clear up some of my other spindles. I have a bad habit of having to many spinning projects going on at one time.

Here I am spinning up merino that I purchased at a recent Fiber Fest. It is a lovely mix of aqua & brown. It is SO soft and lovely! I think it would make a great cowl.

And this bit of spinning is Corriedale. I found a new supplier for Corriedale and thought I should try spinning some up to see if I like what I am selling. So far it is wonderfully soft, and drafts smoothly. The colours are not really "me" but I am sure I will find a good use for the yarn, be it making a gift for someone or perhaps selling it.

And last but not least, my Lillia Hyrna Shawl! It is coming along beautifully, albeit rather slowly. But I don't mind that it is taking me awhile. As I probably said before, knitting with handspun lace is such a luxurious experience. I'm savouring every moment and thoroughly enjoying the process of knitting this shawl.

What about you? I'd love to hear what projects you are working on! Drop me a comment and let me know.

Have a beautiful day, and God bless you!

Silk & Alpaca

Recently my cousin gave me this lovely bundle of silk sari ribbons. A couple of weeks ago I spun up an art batt that had some shredded silk in it, and I greatly enjoyed spinning the parts with thread in it. So I thought I would shred ribbon myself and card it with some of the alpaca we have.

Here is my pile of shredded ribbon. This afternoon my friend and I shredded up more and had the pile grow to twice the size pictured. It was very generous of my friend to employ herself shredding ribbon for me. We felt terribly destructive taking lovely lengths of ribbon, pulling them to bits and then ending up with a pile of multi-coloured threads. This silk ribbon is from saris, and were all frayed to begin with however, and by repurposing these they were going for a good cause.

This week I was away camping so I had to bring along all the materials for this project. I thought it would be fun to try something new whilst on vacation. Today was a rainy,dreary day so we were inside most of the time and that is when we shredded and carded for my silk & alpaca yarn.

Here is what I've spun so far. I am not yet finished carding up all 4 ounces of alpaca and silk, but I needed to take a break from the hand cards. Plus I was eager to see how it look spun up. I am very pleased with the results, it is just what I had in mind and I can not wait to see it plied and with the twist set. I am going to do a two ply because I figure that doing so will help anchor down any stray threads that might not be thoroughly spun in.
I'm still debating on whether or not to design a pattern with this yarn, or just find one and knit it up. I guess we'll see what the yarn wants to be when it is finished!

Cheerio my friends, and God bless! Have a lovely day!

A Few Flowers For You!!!!

I thought I would share a few flowers to brighten your day! They are all either from our garden, families gardens, or taken while out and about.

Enjoy!

Oriental Poppy

Peony

Azalea

Columbine

Snowball Bush

Comfry

And lastly, several varieties of irises.

I hope you have enjoyed all these early summer beauties as much as I have.

Have a wonderful day, my friends!

Glimpses Of Summer

Cooling hot toes in the pool.

Robin's nest in the apple tree.

3 eggs in same nest.

Grapes just coming on the vine.

Sadie, longing to go outside.

Blackberry blossoms.

Sunset over the field.

Mmmm, the smell of summer is in the air and it is wonderful! Hot weather has rolled in all across the US of A and it feels as if summer has finally arrived to stay.

Thank you Lord for the sunshine and warm weather!

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.

Fiber Updates

As of last night this project is finished. But these are the most recent photos I have, they were taken yesterday afternoon. This is a shawl that I made for my sister. The yarn is Knit Picks 'Palette', and the pattern is my own. It is actually my first triangular shawl and I m very excited to have completed it. I still need to work up all the logistics of it and re-write the chart and instructions.

Right now I have the shawl blocking on my bed, today is more of a damp and over cast day so it's drying slowly. I probably should have blocked it somewhere else, I don't want to have to sleep on the couch tonight!

I had the opportunity to visit an Alpaca Farm this week! It was very exciting and I learned SO much. We were doing a dyeing class, which was so informative, and loads of fun. And of course there was the added benefit of being able to go out and look at, & touch, the alpacas.

The little black alpaca, pictured above, is the youngest alpaca on the farm. He was born in October. He was so cute, and so very soft.

Our whole group chose to hand paint/dye yarn instead of roving. I hand painted mine in this blue/green color and brown. The blue in these pictures came out way too blue, it has more green in it. I have hand painted yarn in this fashion before so that was nothing new, but I learned so much about the Greener Shades Dyes, and I feel more confident concerning my dyeing in the future. In fact I'm itching to get started on some new projects. It was lovely to spend several hours soaking up fiber-related knowledge and getting inspiration for future ideas.

And I'll leave you with a photo of the alpacas heading to the barn for the night.