Yarn, Scarf and Socks-to-Be

We've watched more of the Olympics this year than ever before. We bought a projection unit and set it up for the opening ceremonies last week. I'm not sure what my favourite part of the ceremonies was - the hundreds of First Nation's dancers in full costume, Sarah McLaughlin vocals or Katie Lang singing 'Hallelujah'. I can't imagine the work involved in putting such a huge show on. I think it showed the best of Canada - in many different forms.

We watched Canada get it's first gold on Canadian soil, won by Alexandre Bilodeau, which was a great thrill and so touching that he dedicated it to his brother. There has been so many other highlights and we admired the abilities of the athletes of all countries. I have never been a hockey fan, but last night's men's game between Canada and Switzerland had even me on the edge of my seat. Some times, it's just not safe to knit and watch TV!

I've finished my Autumn Days scarf in handspun alpaca and merino this week. This pattern is by Aimee Alexander and is available on Ravelry. I really enjoyed knitting this 6-row pattern and I'm happy with the scarf. I have learned two things. The first, is that a heathered, slightly inconsistent yarn does not show a lace pattern off well. A smoother yarn would have shown off my stitches better. Also, if the scarf pattern says - knit to 60 inches....well, trust the designer...I didn't realize how much the scarf would stretch out with blocking. It's very long.
It is very soft and has already started to bloom. Looks great with black.

I'm currently knitting these socks out of my 3 ply sock yarn of 60% alpaca\20%merino\20% nylon. I had dyed up a bunch of skeins in an intense batch of 'vermillion'. Unfortunately, this batch bled significantly when I washed it. I tried fixing the dye several times, but it just bleeds.
I suspect it might be this colour of dye. Anyway - this yarn makes a very soft but durable pair of socks, so I will knit them for my own use.

Today, I went to a knitting group that was just starting at the Powassan Public Library. I met some lovely women, had some good laughs and shared some knitting ideas. Unfortunately, as always happens, I knit 3 rows and then find a mistake and unknit 3 rows. I can only knit plain stockinette and carry on a conversation at the same time.

I've been trying to update my stock with new colours. As always, the blues, teals and berry colours are more plentiful out of my dyepot. This time, I tried to do something else with a thought to pleasing someone that doesn't share my same favourites.
The Olive colour had to win me over, but I liked the look of the 'Autumn Roses' variegated even before it had set in the pot. This is a very soft, chunky 3 ply alpaca\merino blend.

Gotta go start something else...or maybe find a UFO to finish....

Go Team Canada!

The 2010 Olympics open in Vancouver today. Project and screen are ready in the family room for start of the family couch-potato event. Go CANADA!!!

I have the vet coming this afternoon to draw blood for routine testing for some young alpacas. I get to hold while he attempts to stick a needle in them. Doesn't that sound like fun? I'll probably earn some quality couch-potato time.

Suzanne has finished weaving our black alpaca textile for our jackets. Look!


If you have a dog in your house, you know the wonderful feeling of being loved when your pet runs to greet you at the door when you come home from work. Your dog loves you unconditionally.
Well, my alpacas watch for me in the morning. When they see me leave the house and walk towards the barn, they stop what they are doing and make a mad dash to meet me at the barn.




I am under no illusion.
They could care less whether it's me, my husband or someone else.
They know it's time for their pellets (that's the stuff they get twice a day that gives them their vitamins and minerals that our native forage doesn't give them).
And they might likely run me over if I get in between them and the barn door.



Here's a picture of my two weanlings vacuuming up their pellets. I feed them in a separate area, so they don't have to compete with the big ones for their pellets.

Look at the beautiful tulips that I was given this week. Makes me feel like spring has arrived. (And since is was -32C this morning at our house, I need to be reminded that it is coming!)


And another sign that spring is around the corner...
I took this shot just before noon yesterday. And before you all go "Huh?". This is inside my uninsulated 3-season solarium. The sun was shining in and it was warm enough to sit in there and spin or read (well, if time had permitted...) in the warm sunniness.
And to those American friends who might still be thinking "Huh?" It's in Celcius...it's nice and warm at 22C!

Sunday is Valentine's Day, and Monday is the Family Day holiday. Hope you Feel The Love!

Winter Bones

It's February! More sunny days and longer daylight hours are noticeable. I notice in Facebook that many friends are posting spring and summer pictures to give us all hope. I was listening to the CBC radio program about gardening the other day. The expert was telling us how to plan your garden, so that even the 'winter bones' of your garden are appealing. Well, I'll have to work on that. However, it did make me look at things differently while walking back from the barn.

Sumac in the winter is quite lovely.
My sumac study didn't last long before I noticed that some wild critter (either a fox or a martin, likely) had dug up a dead muskrat that had been buried in the snow. Ahhhh, the 'winter bones' of my rural garden need some refining, for sure.

I have been busy with all things and accomplishing nothing, it seems. I hope to have some finished projects to show you soon.

I was invited to give a presentation at the Powassan Public Library at the end of January. The topic began as 'yarn', but soon transformed into an evening to expose new or previous knitters to many possibilities of knitting with the new fibres and colours available. A couple friends really helped out by bringing their great sample garments. Obviously, I am biased with my alpaca yarn, but I did want to showcase all the possibilities. We also explored some of the environmental and fair trade considerations when buying yarn. Thanks to a friend made through Ravelry.com, I was able to show slides of some very funky wearable art made with novelty art yarn. I was pleased with the large turnout and hope that the evening helped the library to start a knitting program in this community.

I shared a few pictures of harvesting alpaca for my yarn. The audience loved these "before, during and after" pictures, as usual.

A good friend, Suzanne, and I have been planning a project for well over a year. I had some black alpaca yarn that was more suitable for weaving material than knitting. Suzanne and I had decided that there was probably enough there to weave two black jackets if we put them on one loom. We've talked a lot about this over many months. Suzanne grew tired of talking about it. So, we've picked out patterns. We've consulted with Ralph, our weaving guru. We've gone shopping for some colour accent yarn (of course, after shopping, I discovered the perfect Noro novelty yarn in my stash). We've planned the warp (apparently in a garment, even random colour needs to be planned carefully). We made the warp. Suzanne is weaving the material at her apartment.

I am really looking forward to having something made from alpaca handcrafted by my friend Suzanne. Besides being an accomplished weaver/artist, Suzanne is a very special person in my life.
Alpaca are a huge part of my life. This garment will be so special.

Suzanne is very focussed on this project. I think it might be consuming her! We have already discussed hand-crafted buttons for this garment.


Here's a picture of Aurelia. I've shown you pictures of her beautiful fleece before. She actually is a brilliant white although the picture looks like she is fawn. I'm sure it is just the overcast lighting, because she couldn't possibly be that dirty.

Little Blessings!

Blessing #1 happened this morning.

Despite two events causing stress in the hen house...a) Gary cleaning the henhouse floor on the weekend and b) the nasty winter weather we've had this week...still,
we get eggs.

My in-laws used to keep hens. I never understood why anyone would keep chickens when you could buy the eggs cheaper in the grocery store.
I get it now.
There is something remarkable about going out in the morning, and finding a perfectly shaped egg, being kept warm by the hen. The hens don't ask for much and in return, they will feed your family.

Blessing #2
I found this beautiful mohair blanket at Value Village. What a bargain!


Blessing #3
I have had some time to do some handpainting this past week.

Blessing #4
This last one isn't a little blessing, this is a BIG blessing.

....that I have so many positive people in my life, that I can quickly forget about the negative ones....


I hope that you can count many blessings in your life today.

Warm, Cold, Black, White

Just a few pictures from the past week.

We had some cool winter days....

These are the older girls sharing some breakfast on a chilly day...

This is a picture of Quincy, settling in for a little nap after breakfast.
Quincy was part of our original herd that we brought in from Double E Alpacas in Saskatchewan back in 2002.
She was definitely the grand matriarch back then...she used to put her ears back, her tail up and gurgle (her cud) as a warning that she was going to spit any minute. This, while standing atop the frozen straw\poop pile while clucking at the other girls to get behind her.
We soon found out that she would tolerate being scratched along the jaw line and that in the summer, she loved to be cooled down with the water hose or a kiddie pool.
She'll be 15 this summer. Over the years, she has welcomed the new herd additions with varying degrees of tolerance. She no longer challenges the younger females for top position in her herd. She's given us a few good cria, the last one is a black female that looks just like her. Even though Quincy is a senior citizen, she's the first one to run with the cria in the twilight and dances on her hind legs when the fresh hay is brought out. She's earned a little rest.
She's the foundation of excellent breeding females with lots of milk, easy breeding and birthing.



Vivaldi is still my most photogenic little guy.














And we had a bit of January thaw....

Beautiful days to be outside. We heat our house with a Heatmor outdoor wood furnace. Although we can put large logs in...we do split our wood to make it easier for us to manage.
Usually we cut all the wood into lengths and then rent a log-splitter. However, this year, Gary is using an axe.
We usually have all the wood done in the fall, but this year, we are doing a little bit every week. It's a nice reason to be outside on a nice winter day. I won't show you the pile still to be cut and split. We'll just get to the end of it and it will be time to get next year's wood delivered!

January is a nice time, even though it's often cold and snowy here. My yarn events and farm work starts in the spring. The farm work carries into the late fall when my Christmas yarn and garment shop is busy.
I like January to March for catching up on personal jobs and fibre-related things that I want to try.

I am currently spinning a blend of alpaca\kid mohair\merino that I carded up last year. The kid mohair comes from Lee Resmer's angora goat kids at Elmlea Farm in Ontario.
The blend is very silky. It's easy to spin quite fine, although if I get distracted it slips apart quite easily.


This is kid mohair in washed locks form.
The kid mohair is silky, bright and soft with a long staple length.
I am in the process of blending the rest of it for sale.
Although I like the process, I find the locks a bit tedious to use as I have to tease the fibres prior to putting them into the carder. Perhaps, I need more knowledge about processing these mohair locks. I'll likely buy pre-carded mohair tops to blend instead.


Regardless of the process challenges, I am making a lovely white yarn from it. I think I will handpaint it and then knit it into a triangular scarf\shawl. Stay tuned.

I am spending a lot of time thinking of the yarns that I will make from this year's fleece harvest. I find myself checking out the fleeces on my alpacas and formulating a plan for my 2010 yarns. We shear in early June, then I sort\skirt and transport to the mill. The mill usually has a 4 to 6 month waiting period. That's before dyeing, labelling, etc. It may be that I have to buy another farm's 2009 fleece to get another run of yarn in and back prior to September.
This is Aurelia's fine fleece....yummy...will likely become 2 ply 100% fingering weight once more.

What is this?


This is the top down view of two pen mates...Aurelia who is brilliant white and Raven, who is true black. Raven is the youngest (and likely last) offspring of Quincy, pictured above).

Thanks for popping by.
Have a good week.

Favorite and Not Such Favorite Things

This morning, at the barn, I got SPIT ON! Full face, gobbed on glasses, spit on by Daewoo the Llama. This has me particularly offended because I am forever trying to dispell the bad publicity that llamas suffer from.

I often have people here at my open houses that ask of the alpacas, "Do they spit like llamas?" and then continue to tell me of the nasty, cantankerous beast that they met.

To which I start my well-rehearsed speech about llamas having a bad reputation in North America because most people have only met them in petting zoos where they are confined to a small pen or have been improperly socialized. Llamas and alpacas both spit at each other in competition for food, sex or for a first line of defense. Pregnant females will spit at an amorous male to tell him to 'Go take a cold shower, Buddy!'. A stressed alpaca - getting examined by the vet - may spit up in the air or at the wall she is facing to express her concern. During these times, we caretakers may get caught in the cross-fire. However, properly socialized and cared for llamas or alpacas should never spit at humans.

I would like to believe that Daewoo looked a bit sheepish listening to me rant at him while wiping my face and cleaning off my glasses. And I would like to believe that he was aiming at the female alpaca that was near to me. Even after I reminded him that he was not a llama of particular endearing qualities, that he had a lot of guard hair and bad teeth and that I wasn't sure that he was earning his keep around here, he didn't look too concerned. Llamas are a bit like cats...they think we are lesser beings than their 'royal selves' and could live without all of our emotional drama.

Here's a picture of Frankie the llama. He's quite large and currently, more appreciated than Daewoo, at least today.


Here's one of our male alpaca, Striker.

Llamas and alpacas are in the same family - camelid. The most obvious difference between the alpaca and llama in the pictures are the size, the shape of the ears (see Frankie's telltale banana shaped ears?), and the shape of the head. In person, you would notice an obvious difference in the fleece. Although llama fibre can be used for textiles, llamas were originally bred for pack animals and meat. Alpacas have been bred for their fleece quality for thousands of years.
Both are extraordinary, intelligent animals.

Being larger, llamas take on a guardian role with the alpaca. If we pasture a llama with our weanling alpacas, the llama will bond with weanlings. This is particularly useful with the male weanlings - as the llama will protect the young male from the older male alpacas when they are moved to the boys pasture. Our llamas are gelded males - otherwise, they could impregnate an alpaca and thus produce a poorly fleeced cross-breed.

In this picture, you can see the difference in the size between the alpaca and the llama. This particular alpaca, Carmel, is our largest alpaca but you can see that Frankie the Llama is quite a bit taller and is likely double his weight.

Happy Day! New books arrived at the library...and since I received the courier package...I got to open the box. It's like Christmas at the library!!!
I am probably the world's slowest-reading library clerk but I can still dream of having time to read all the interesting ones!!!

I'm back at the weaving studio. I've put a warp on for a couple scarves. The warp is a handdyed 2 ply of 100% alpaca with some stripes of my handspun, handdyed alpaca\merino blend from my stash. I am weaving the first scarf with a black alpaca\merino blend milled from my own black alpacas. The colours are beautiful and the warp feels incredibly soft.
















I wove and undid the first 5 inches three times before finally hoping that I have the proper tension.

Weavers will note by the pin on the woven part and the little bowtie on the back view that I broke a warp thread. Another one happened shortly after.

I'm sure things will go smoother in the studio next time....

Pink Fluff and Farm Pics

We all seem to be having a bit of a struggle to get back in the swing of things after the holidays. I guess it was just too relaxing around here over the Christmas/New Years break.

Well, since moving the carder into my store area, I've been working at getting this batch of pink fluff completed. The store area has a lot less static than the rest of the house, due to our heating area, so I hope it will increase my production of fibre this winter.

What starts as 70% washed fine white alpaca, 20% white merino top and 10% handdyed silk (Merlot).....


gets put through my Patrick Green electric carder twice...

During the first pass, most of the bits of hay or any little second cuts get thrown off and the initial blending takes place. I do about 80 grams at a time and make a bunch of 'first-pass' batts. Then, I strip the 'first-pass' batts to refeed through the carder for the second pass. The second pass throws almost all remaining bits of matter and improves the blending of the colours.


Usually, I pull the fibre off into rovings. I spun for from batts for a long time, but customers mostly prefer rovings.

So, this ends up as pink fluffy rovings....

This looks like cotton candy in real life.

I've been back at the weaving studio. I've put a lovely scarf warp of heron and mint dyed alpaca. I hope to get pictures here soon.

Here's my little Vivaldi, looking through the pen gate. Keep in mind that he has already had his morning pellets. Can't you just picture him as Oliver Twist in the orphanage scene "Please, Sir, I want more?"....