The Fiber Collective
Summer is coming…
…so why am I looking for alpaca projects? I do live in Southern California after all…
Lots of things happening around here. I wish more were fiber related, but we have been super busy and my folks came out to stay with us for a couple weeks to help celebrate the twins’ fourth birthday. There have been trips all over the place, including Disneyland (which I hear will not allow needles in the park…good thing I didn’t have any down time there)!
So, it started with the Cookie A class I took after meeting her at Unwind. I designed my first pair of socks! Of course I am still test knitting them…so we’ll see how they turn out. Then my folks came bearing gifts from Frankenmuth.
Pictures from my parents trip to Frankenmuth
My folks scored me 2 3/4 pounds of fluff!
1lb. white combed top, 1 lb. white alpaca, 3/4 lb. of dyed alpaca
I am now swimming in alpaca and I have no idea what to make with it. The hot weather is here, but the office has been in deep freeze, so I might have a good reason to make some alpaca garments. I still have the bag of alpaca and bunny that my mom got me on her last trip to the mill. That will be the next thing I spin. I have some yarn on the bobbins right now that has just been chillin’ there. One of the bobbins is a surprise project I can’t write about here….the others have just been waiting for me to get some time to dump my photos onto any random computer I can find so I can make room to take proper, non-mobile phone pictures.
Once the parents left I went a little cuckoos mcgoos. The last two days I have spent dyeing fiber after the kids have gone to bed.
Messin' around with acid dye
I dyed some mills ends wool with some Jacquard acid dyes. I was messing around with dye to try and find my groove. I am new to this.
Then I decided to take that pound of alpaca my folks brought and hit it with some black food coloring. It turned out gorgeous!
Alpaca in purty greens and purples...
Of course, this whirlwind of crazy doesn’t include all the stuff I did last night which included handcarding some other stuff I dyed and making goodies for my Fiber Collective Swap Partner. But those are secret….shhhhh…..
Best weekend ever!! Part Two
So, Saturday we got up bright and early and just kinda did not a whole hell of a lot. We had all decided that we could do things at a slower pace since we had done one full round on Friday. Um….I didn’t really realize what kind of yarn induced haze I was in on Day One, but boy did I see a whole boatload of stuff I didn’t see before!
I got to the marketplace sometime around lunchtime and it was packed. Thank goodness for twitter. At some point not too long after we hit the Brooks Farm Booth, we got separated. It wasn’t a bad thing, but I am the only one in our little group that does the spinning thing. That is when I tracked down the ladies of The Fiber Collective via Twitter.
I met up with Bellatrix at the Carolina Homespun booth. We tried to track down Dr. Gemma from the CogKNITive podcast, but she was lost in a sea for fiber (later to find out she found someone to show her how to draft). So Bellatrix and I headed over to the Purlescence booth where we got the chance to meet with Jasmin and GiGi of the Knitmore Girl’s Podcast. We grabbed some goodies bags and tried to reach Gemma again. Time to move.
This is where my day got interesting…Bellatrix and I, the ladies of The Fiber Collective, and Dr. Gemma all converged on the Carolina Homespun booth. It was fun to watch Dr. Gemma try out all of the wheels. She showed enormous restraint in not purchasing, because she sure had me wanting to buy another wheel (which would have broken my budget)!
Dr. Gemma on the Majacraft
Stash Acquisition, Day 2
Christmas Balls Herringbone Rib Socks
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