Blended Alpaca Batts

It takes about three passes thru the Fancicard to make these well-blended batts.

They are so soft and silky...all will be used for lace projects.

The lighter coloured batts are fawn alpaca and seasilk (60% seacell and 40%silk). I picked up the seasilk from the Black Lamb a couple weeks ago.

The brown colour batts are a blend of the golden suri (shown in my previous post), chocolate brown huacaya cria and silk.

The silk and the suri are so flyaway and sticky! I found a way to help blend them tho. I put flyaway fibres underneath the layer of huacaya or wool when I feed it into the drumcarder.

Shearing at Obosheen Alpacas

This little beauty is Apollo. His fawn cria fleece will be mine at the end of the day.

A fawn suri cria, only a few days old.

This is Krisztina Mikkelsen. She is studying and training to be an alpaca and fleece judge. She is kind enough to share her knowledge of fleece with me. I luv skirting with her because I always learn so much. Thanks Krissy.

My Apollo fleece was the last that was sheared (out of 34 or 35 animals). I skirt pretty ruthlessly because I know that I want my yarn as soft and perfect as I can get it. Also being a cria fleece it can have extra VM. I would definitely class this fleece in the superfine category which is 20 microns or less.

While skirting, I might take a bit from the blanket if I like a fleece. In this case I chose a nice assortment of fawns.

There were a few nice suris but the fleece was too long so I cut it shorter before I wash it.

Of course my little Spice girl had to get in on the action too :)

Shearing Day at Hubbert Farm (pic heavy post)

Shearing lasted from 8:30am until after 7pm. There were many pregnant females being sheared. They can get a bit testy when being hoisted onto the table (I don't blame them!)

Some fleece I have from the shearing. White is cria and the fawn and brown are second shearing. More on them later.

While I was there a little life emerged. A pregnant female went into labour soon after she was shorn. I have to admit that I shed a few tears of joy watching this happen.

Carding Frenzy

Black cria alpaca and hand dyed silk

Moorit merino fleece for blending Fine white alpaca, light moorit merino and bamboo

Finished batts rolled into bumps. I like these batts thoroughly blended so that's why it took so long.

There's been a ferocious, nasty wind blowing here for 2 days now but I was snug and warm inside with my Fancicard. Yes it's a thing of beauty...everything I dreamed it would be. Cue the violins :)

Last night I carded and blended for 5 hours straight. I have a new respect for all you carding people out there. It's alot of work (my back is letting me know today).

You can expect that every one of my blends will contain alpaca. Luckily alpaca works with pretty much everything.

I expect shearing day is this coming Tuesday and I will have a couple of new alpaca fleeces to show you :) and pics of the shearing if you would like to see.

My Fancicard Has Arrived!

I've been busy carding grey alpaca blend for socks and enough yarn to finish my Ene's Scarf. Those huge batts will be recarded again to blend them thoroughly. It will take some time to learn all the carding skills.....carding kid mohair with the alpaca was difficult. I just want to try blending everything right now!

Wool and Ene's Scarf

My Ene's scarf is coming along nicely, although it's slow going. This is only my second lace shawl. I will probably order some lace blocking wires from here http://www.geminifibres.com/ My yarn's kind of getting low so I'll have to card kid mohair and blend it on my mini-combs with silver alpaca, which is how I made this yarn.

Finished CVM Romeldale Cross wool. I spun this from the lock and it's a 2 ply. There's around 650 yards in 220 grams. I still have a little bit of this left to blend with silk. This wool is soft and has a beautiful sheen to it.

Did I mention that I have ordered a Pat Green Fancicard? I sent the cheque in around the end of April and Paula called me on Monday to say they were shipping it that day (May 4th). Now that's fast! I am so excited that I've been reorganizing my very small fibre room in order to make everything fit. I need to have lots of work space but still have all my fibres handy. (I have ALOT of fibres) Pics when it arrives!

Chippy

My DH caught these pics of me outside on our back porch. Please forgive the clashing clothes hehe.

This is a chipmunk that has been living here since last spring. I used to put food outside for him. Early this spring I saw him again sitting outside in the sun, so I thought I would try to get to know him better. I have him eating sunflower and pumpkin seeds (unsalted of course) out of my hand. Sometimes I give him peanuts in the shell. He buries most of them in his "secret" hiding place and some he will eat. The other day I tempted him to hop onto my lap to get his peanut. He's such a cutie. After he stuffs his little cheeks full of food, Chippy looks up at me as if to say..."Is that all there is lady??".