Alpaca meets Sheep

Here is the result of the Suri alpaca (yellow and blue) plied with the range ewe from Wyoming (Rambouillet/Columbia).  It is so fun!  Will make a lovely and big and warm scarf. 

Projects

Here are two of my latest projects.  A wonderful batt of white cormo wool and purple silk!  Ooooo, soft! 

And, I painted some animals from the Kansas City Zoo.

Wonderful Visit!

Last week I drove to Hoyt, Kansas to visit Marcia and Joel and their furry friends at Alpacas at Orchard Hill Farm.  They own the beautiful Mona Lisa (whose fantastic fleece was mentioned in one of my earlier blogs).  I was able to meet their great alpacas and feel some wonderful fleece, even before shearing!  I fell in love with several really nice fleeces and am hoping that one will join me in Kansas City.  I am also hoping that their Easter shearing went really well.  Here are two of their sweet boys!  I love those faces!

Spring is Finally Here!

At last, Spring!  Here is a photo of my dogwood in bloom!

And, with Spring, comes the shearing of the flocks/herds/groups of fiber bearing animals.  This is a lovely alpaca fleece from Dante, who lives in Pennsylvania.  It is really soft!

Bunnies and Chicks

I couldn't resist firing up a load of glass pins and earrings for Easter.  Here is a peak inside my kiln after the glass is fired!

Suri Alpaca

I got 3 Suri fleeces last week.  This is from Lilu.  She is a beautiful white Suri alpaca who lives in Ohio.  Her locks were so long that I wondered if I was carding them correctly.  I still don't know if I am doing it right.  But, the final batt is like silk. It is so soft and shiny.  Very amazing.   I dyed some blue and some green.  The top photo shows the (green and white) fleece still wet and not yet carded.  I will probably dye all the white in wonderful colors!

New Fleece

Well, I needed to keep the carder working, so I got on Ebay and bought a fleece from Worland, Wyoming. Three hundred miles north of my alma mater in Laramie.

The 6.5 pound (that is a lot of wool!!) fleece is from a 5 year old ewe whose father was a registered Columbia ram and whose mother was an old Rambouillet range ewe from the Broke Back mountain area. My fleece's ewe has been a good mother to three sets of twins and she should have her lambs any day now.  The fleece is very springy, lively and fun.  Some of it was so crimpy that I had to get of photo of it.  And, the fleece is really pretty soft.   It dyes beautifully.  I spun some "in the grease" and it was very fun.  I washed out about a third of the box.  Some of the washed wool is shown in the last photo above.  The box was packed tight.  It was so big that I wondered if the sheep was in there and I listened for sounds.  I got a great price on Ebay and am wondering if I should send them more money.

Alpacas

I met beautiful alpacas at the March 2011 Alpaca show in Kansas City.  Here are two of them, Penny and Liberty.  I took their photos at the show and created these 8x10 oil paintings.  I hope to get even more photos on Friday when I visit Liberty at her home!

If it Holds Still - Dye It

I found this stained linen tablecloth at an estate sale last week for $2.20.  It is a nice heavy linen.  So, I brought it home and used cellulose dye on it.  And, now it is pretty.  Here it is drying in the sun.  It is even prettier after I ironed it!

Dogs Rule!

Chiquita was enjoying a cool day with her new sweater that I felted for her from some of my merino wool.  And, of course, I had to make a Sculpey button for it.

Poor Dotty is on the run.  Dotty is wanting a purple sweater.  So, I need to get busy.

Ignorance is Truly Bliss!

I am having such fun with my alpaca fleece, from the beautiful Mona Lisa, alpaca who lives with Marcia.
I carded some dyed locks last night and it went so nice that I decided to dye more locks.  Then, I put those locks in the sun to dry.  They looked so pretty and fluffy that I went inside, got my spinning wheel, took the wheel outside and started spinning.  No problem.  Not sure if this is what I should do with alpaca.  But, it looks so pretty.  It is sort of lumpy yarn-just the way I like it!  If it is homespun, shouldn't it look homespun?  I can't wait to ply it, full it and crochet something warm and wonderful.  Maybe a hat!?

Red Wins!

Here is the photo of the original sample and then the results of the red (watered down Jacquard cherry red) overdye.  The overdye really helped make the colors work together.  I ran some tests first and really had to water down the red dye.