Backcountry Knitting

Packing as light as possible, I took a little knitting project on my backcountry trip. Size 2 bamboo needles are very light as is the alpaca/silk blend that I just spun.  Although it was not raining, the foliage was so wet I was soaked by the time I got off  the Huckleberry Creek Trail.  My knitting stayed dry in a plastic bag. After hiking for 6 hours up hill we reached our camping spot at Forest Lake in Mount Rainier National Park. By this time it was late and we set up camp. I was cold and sore and had a horrible night's sleep.

The sun was out in the morning so we dried out our wet clothes. I sat in the sun and knitted for a few hours before hiking back down the hill. It took 5 hours to get back to the car.

This was a "test-run" since I'm new to backcountry camping. Lessons learned: pack more rain gear and polar fleece. Next time I'm planning an easier hike with more time for knitting.

Stumbling upon Alpaca

My husband and I had a little time away from work and the kids. We went to Whidbey Island to a B&B that we had been to before. He brought books; I brought my spinning wheel.  I had the Bison to spin, but as I mentioned in a prior post, it wasn't exactly working out.

We went on a walk down by the water at Penn Cove and came across a little alpaca farm. My husband is the talkative one and insisted that we march up the gravel drive way and talk to the folks that live there. The woman who lived there had a little store where she sold her alpaca fiber among other things. Jackpot!

I bought two different kinds of roving, one being this "Ceno with Silk" blend. (My understanding is Ceno is the alpaca's name.) It was a delight to spin.

Frosen Acres Alpacas on Penn Cove Road saved the day.

Spinning Alpaca From Three Different Preparations

 I'm feeling the love for Alpaca right now. The brown one is made from my friend's batts. I wrote about before on this blog. The middle gray one is some random unwashed raw alpaca that someone gifted me. I hand carded that one. The light gray was made from roving that is an alpaca/silk blend.  I washed all these skeins today and noticed all the difference regarding the prep. The raw fleece that I carded (middle, dark grey) was really dirty. The batt was pretty dirty too. The roving was clean and just needed a soak. All were made into a lace-weight 2 ply yarn. All are natural colors.

brown = batt
dark grey = raw
light grey = roving

Spinning Bison

 I had never spun bison before and finally got the chance. I bought 9oz of blended bison and kid mohair from a lady who owns a spinning shop in Tonasket, Washington. She had pick up the fiber from a local bison. She had decided to card it with her neighbor's kid mohair.

Sadly, I couldn't make a nice yarn. From the bottom up: the fiber as I bought it, spun straight from the batt, hand carded and pick, hand carded and pick out as much VM and little lumps of bison as possible.

The best I could do was to pick it really well and blend it with alpaca. This one is alpaca, bison, and kid mohair in equal parts. Still the lumpy bison fluff makes the yarn look scrappy so I'm not going to spin rest.  Lesson learned.

Wool in August

Working on an Icelandic sweater in August seems crazy. It's in the upper 80s and I have to have a fan blowing on me while I knit. I know I should have some kind of "summer project" but I've been obsessive about getting this sweater coat made.                                                                                                     

I've been keeping busy these last few months with some major knitting projects (to be unveiled later), but I've done very little spinning and absolutely zero blogging about fleece. I feel change a comin'. I feel like getting back in the saddle. I feel like giving some attention to my blog again. More to come.