Selling some livestock is part of the business of farming. This morning, I prepared to transport some alpacas, including the two cria born here in June and a llama buddy that has been on my farm for nine years to a new farm.
The females have been sold for quite a while, residing on my farm to birth out their cria or to be bred while their new owners made their new farm ready for them.
I'm happy that they are going to such a great home, where I know they will be cherished and properly cared for. And as a bonus, the farm is very close and I hope to be invited over to see them once in a while.
I had no other cria born on the farm this year. So I won't be seeing cria pronking and playing silly in the front pasture now. Perhaps I will train myself not to keep looking out the window to watch them.
Sigh.
I guess you can't blame me for being a little sad to say goodbye.
Sigh.
I keep telling myself that I'm free of the responsibility of having little ones in the field. And I won't have any cria to wean in late fall or halter train in the spring.
Sigh.
So...anyway....I'm expanding my repertoire of knitting techniques. I've wanted to knit a hat pattern called 'In-Between Seasons Cap' by Cathy Campbell (find it on Ravelry), and had picked some lovely soft handspun of Alpaca\Polwarth wool blend in chocolate brown from my ever-growing stash. The pattern uses twisted stitches and describes how to do a twL and twR stitch. Apparently, I just could not compute. I tried these stitches several times to no avail.
Sigh.
Youtube to the rescue!!!
I found the Knit Purl Hunter who described it perfectly. This lady has a lot of valuable videos on her website.
Knitting with this handspun alpaca/wool blend is heaven.
Sigh.
I heard someone describe the difference between commercial yarn and handspun yarn as "the difference between store-bought bread and homebaked bread". Love it.
Sigh.
So...tonight my family is going to the movies. It wasn't my turn to pick. We are going to see "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Really.
Sigh.
4 comments:
The KnitPurlHunter website has so much info, thanks for sharing.
Your new hat looks really nice.
And do come over anytime to visit!
Feeling sad about your babies leaving is ok Norma! :~)
Love the cable pattern...I've not tried to knit for over 20 yrs now...I do get knitting urges every now and then but I have a piece of chocolate or some jelly beans...takes my mind off the urge!
Cheers
Thanks Wooly Knits n Bits...I'll be over for my cria fix.
Heather...come feel my yarn...you'll be knitting again. Come over to the dark side...you can still eat chocolate...in fact, chocolate and alpaca is kind of like reaching Nirvana...or something like that ;)
Hmm... I'm sorry, I know how this feels. Worst part is selling time. I always feel so relieved when it's a great home, but it's always very hard no matter what. Thanks for sharing the link too, I'm a new knitter, trying to teach myself because I can't get away from the farm for classes. I'd like to get my hands to work again this winter when other projects slow down. I pulled all my yarns out today :)
How was the movie? ;)I had to watch Captain America this summer - not my choice either, and I'm not sure if anyone else liked it, but I was bored... however the lead guy is really, really good looking so it makes up for the rest of the movie :) Hope you had a good time.
Post a Comment