Yesterday I spun with the ladies at the Parker River Alpaca Farm. The weather was beautiful, if a bit chilly (I don't think it got much above freezing all day), but we had a lovely greenhouse to spin in. See?
There were snacks and hot coffee, and Kathy even thought to bring some blankets, so we stayed pretty comfy until the sun started to set. I did manage to take a photo of some of the female alpacas at the farm on my way out.
There were a couple of suri alpacas, one of which allowed me to have a quick pat while she had her head in the feeder. Man, are they ever soft! There were also two babies - I think you can just see the bum of Kathy's little girl there on the right. I meant to get photos of them, but they were hungry and I was freezing so we thought we'd wait until another day. ;-)
The folks at the farm were selling these awesome socks - Criations, Smarter than Cashmere. It's a new venture for the farm and the spinners in attendance certainly approved. They're 93% renewable: 74% alpaca, 19% corn, and only 7% assorted socky manmade fibers. I bought a pair for The Mister (and one for Daddy for Christmas) and he says they are the nicest, softest socks he's ever had. So there you go - a testimonial.
While at the farm I finished up the singles of the Spunky Eclectic BFL, but had no way to ply them, having only the two spools for the Fricke. So this morning I puzzled over it for a bit, and decided that I couldn't think of any reason not to try one of the Babe's spools on the Fricke. VIOLA! It worked! It's a little loose and rattles a bit at high speed, but in a pinch... what the heck! So I spent some of today plying the BFL (and yelling at the NY Giants) and here is a not-so-great-but-it-gets-dark-so-damn-early-now photo of my accomplishment.
I thought I was being very aggressive in my plying, and that I was doing a really good job of twisting good and tight, but as you can see I'm still a little loose in spots. I'm just going to have to be less timid next time and really ply the bejesus out of it. This is a "before" shot, as I haven't washed and set the twist yet. I washed the wool/silk sweater and mitten today and after rinsing them about a million times to get the bleeding to stop I just didn't feel like playing in the bathtub any more. Good news is, the sweater only faded a tiny bit, despite the gallons of bright purple rinse water. I know, I know - I went on and on about how this yarn was far too purple and far too dark for me but.... having worn it a couple of times it really grew on me!
Hooray for changing one's mind!
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