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.

Blue Heron Ranch Alpaca Fiber

A friend of mine from High School recently started selling Alpaca fibers to spinners.

Her etsy shop is here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueHeronRanch?ref=search_shop_redirect

Her blog is here: http://blueheronranch.wordpress.com/contact/

I obtained 2 oz and spun it in to a two-ply lace weight yarn.

Now I get to look for a pattern...what will it be? Mitts? A beret? We will see...

The Most Complicated Lace Pattern I've Ever Attempted

2 FOs

This reminds me of a mitt for washing cars. However, when turned right side out, it becomes a thrummed mitten. As long as I have been working with fleece I've wanted to make some of these mittens. This pair took me almost a year to complete. First I ran out of the main color of yarn and had to order a skain. Then I made one too short and and to rip part of it out. In the end they sat in a basket of unfinished projects through the summer and fall until I finally finished them.  Whew.

I used the pattern call Thrummed Mittens by Jennifer L Appleby from Interweave Knits Winter 2006.

Another FO to cross off the list! I finally sewed the side seems. This pattern is called Leafy Glen Shell by Liga Leja. I found it in The Knitter's Book of Wool. But this is not made with wool.  It's made with Seasilk from my stash. Done!

Fix, Finish, Frog, or Forget

After two cups of strong coffee this morning I tackled an organizing project that was hangin' over my head. You see, I get a little corner of the garage for my storage and workspace for my fiber arts. This messy little corner needed an overhaul. I put finished yarn in one bin, raw fleece in another bin, etc. Sadly I had a whole category of "unfinished projects". To think I use to be a one-project-at-a-time girl and now I have a serious case of start-itis. Sigh. Well, I'm going to  whittle away at the unfinished projects now. First I have to decide: fix, finish, frog, or forget. "Forget" is to literally throw in the the trash. Sometimes that's the best place for an unfinished project. Today I'm going to start with the easy ones:

A Sea-Silk tank that has already been blocked---all it needs is two side seems and to weave in the ends.

FINISH

A pair of thrummed mittens. The ends need to be woven in and all the little thrums need to be fluffed on the inside.


FINISH

Oh, what was I thinking? The design on this shawl doesn't stand out enough because of the lumpy hand spun yarn. Why waste the yarn?

FROG






Time to get to work.