Food AND Yarn

Yesterday we had my stepson and his girlfriend over for dinner. I made ribs with homemade BBQ sauce in the crockpot. There was green beans from my garden and fresh tomato bruschetta. Another pic shows my chicken sate on the skewers in the marinade. It's spicey and really tastey. We put those on the BBQ to cook. I use the Nasi spice packet in my basmati rice along with leeks and mushrooms.

I finished a skein of navajo-ply yarn from the white sheep fleece I spoke of yesterday. I also ordered a couple books from amazon that will arrive in November. I got A Fine Fleece (I am going to spin enough yarn to make a sweater...I think Flyingdales cardigan) ...Shear Spirit...Lace Knitting of Estonia which is Nancy Bush's new book...a must have....and Judith MacKenzie's new book...The Intentional Spinner. I have her last spinning book but it's just so basic and I want a more indepth spinning book so I am hoping this one will fit the bill. Not sure what I'll spin next but I do need to spin a couple 2 ply skeins of alpaca for my estonian mittens.

I am waiting on a few samples of pygora from a lady who lives here in Ontario. I have wanted to try pygora for a while. All these fibres are just so exiting aren't they?!!

Lots of Browns

I have begun working on fleece from Val http://www.lifewithsheep.blogspot.com/. I only got a couple pounds but I wish I had bought more. I am in luv with this fleece. It's corriedale/shetland/rambo cross and I think it has all the best characteristics of all those breeds. I am amazed at how clean it is too. Third pic is two more navajo-plyed skeins of a dark fawn. It's very crimpy and really soft. Last pic shows all the colours of my newest alpaca fleeces together. I plan to make 2 scarves and a pair of Estonian mittens.

Cria Fleece and Samples

I began work on my small light fawn cria fleece the other day. I want to make a couple large navajo-plyed skeins to add to my other alpaca yarns. They will be used to knit something for the alpaca breeder. I like to give something back.

The cria fleece is almost like a finewool in the way it behaves. Be careful or there will be neps. The tips were gunked up (from amniotic fluid I assume) and so I decided to spin and process this fleece unwashed. It was pretty clean except for those ends. I used my trusty dog comb on those. Quite a bit of waste but what was left was heavenly.

My three samples of alpaca/bamboo turned out pretty good. Blending would have been better with a drum carder though. They are soft and pretty.

Last pic is of Spicey and Mokka. Sometimes they will play together but most of the time Spicey is just bitchy to him.

New Alpaca Yarns

Top photo is beautiful brown (several colours) hand combed alpaca top. Second pic is navajo-plyed alpaca on the bobbin. Third and final.... we have freshly washed alpaca yarns in two colours. I have 3 small sample skeins of alpaca blended with bamboo top that I am in the process of plying. I will post those photos later this week.

Flashing My Stash

As you can see from pics of my little fibre room it's really not too bad. I managed to stuff all my sheep and alpaca fleeces into a few boxes and large plastic tubs. If you look carefully in the second pic on top of the blue box there are some fibre packets waiting to be sent to Charlene for our fibre trade. Just a few more and then I can post it.

Lanolin Overload

Just a few pics of what I have been doing lately. Freshly washed alpaca fleeces and new sheep fleeces from Val http://lifewithsheep.blogspot.com/. Tomorrow I will finish washing the black corriedale. I really like the corriedale cross fleeces. They are softer than my pure corrie fleeces. Val has been really good about sending samples so you can try before you buy and she has a wide variety of fleece too. Not to mention she is just plain nice and honest. Thanks Val.