Spinning Lily

In exciting news my parents alpaca Lily is 2 months pregnant! Lily is one of my favorite alpacas.  She is co-owed by Emelise Farms and currently she is at their farm. She went there for a romantic get-a-away and it looks like the trip has been successful.

What has drawn me to Lily is her sweet personality. She is gentile and sweet, but always seeming to get into some sort of trouble. Like jumping out the van window, slipping through unopened gates, and constantly putting her feet in the water bucket. We do say "Oh Lily" a little to often.

Recently my mom sent her fleece into a spin off competition. A spin off competition is where you send in a sample of the alpacas fleece and it is analyzed and spun up by a judge and then scored. Lily's came in first place and the judge wrote a comment "I wish I owned this fleece."

So for my birthday when my mom asked me what I wanted I requested some of Lily's roving. I was spinning away yesterday.

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to do more spinning. I really enjoy it and I know with more practice I'll get much better at it.  I enjoy knitting with fingering weight yarn, so I've been spinning Lily's fiber as a lace weight and then Navajo plying it, which makes it a 3 ply yarn.

I am getting better at the Navajo plying, but this is well... still in the beginners stage. In the past I use my Lazy Kate and ply three singles together to make a 3 ply yarn.

In the mean time I'm waiting for some custom dyed roving to come in the mail. I'll be spinning it up to make a Spire with "The Girls in Sheep Clothing.... and a few boys too."  I am very excited about it.

Along with spinning I've been working away at a new pattern I've designed. It is past the half way mark and I am really enjoying it.  More to come on that in 2014.

 

And just for fun a picture of Lily right after she was sheared. Enjoying a good sun bath.

 

 

 

Play Date with Harper

My parents dog Harper came over today for a play date with Tiny.  I forgot how many hours a day Tiny used to torture play with Harley. Harper is such a good boy and it has been fun having him in the house.

 

I just posted some pictures of my finished Quill Shawl over on the "Girls in Sheep Clothing" blog. Swing on by and check it out and Awan the alpaca photo bombing my photo shoot.