The Faces of Friends

Every morning and evening, I'm greeted by the most beautiful and eager of faces. I have to say, I'm the highlight of their day. I bring the treats and provide most of the excitement that they experience in each 24 hour period. Their huge dark eyes fix on me while they wait, just out of reach, for their grain.

Alpacas are so stoic that you can't tell something is wrong until it's nearly too late, but just give them the hope of a treat or the promise of a good spraying down on their legs, and the poker faces disappear. They're all eagerness and self-forgetfulness when the good stuff comes out.

Baby face, you've got the cutest little baby face...






















Look Mommy! The alpaca is smiling!!

Three Babies in One Day!!

Yes, we had three, count 'em, three, babies in one two hour period today. I got home from town, looked out in the pen and yelled, "We have a baby out there! No,....wait, we have two babies!! Oh my gosh!.....we have three babies!!! All of them were still wet, two were up, one couldn't have been more than 15 minutes old and all the after births were accounted for on the ground.

So here they are! The black is a little male out of our Timothy and Zayne. The big brown one is a boy as well out of Zion and our Taliesin. The little rose gray with the white face is a female out of Miss Rose and Black Knight. The first two are out of completely home bred and home grown stock. Miss Rose and Black Knight have produced three gray females in a row now. This little one has an umbilical hernia so she's wearing a belly band.














And then there's our little Rowdy. Sadly, he lost his mama to a perforated bowel last week. She was such a sweet girl and gave us such a sweet little baby. He's our bottle baby now at the tender age of 2 months, and has just gotten over the shock of losing his mama. He's attached himself to a young maiden of ours, Zakaree, and they're quite the pair. He's an awfully good boy, very vocal and a little confused about all these babies. Today, he thinks Miss Rose is his mama, so he's been tossed into a separate pen for now. Rose's baby needs to get all the colostrum she can get and Rowdy will only deplete the supply. Rose would have taken him, too, if we hadn't interfered. She has some mental challenges and would have abandon her baby in favor of Rowdy.

We have one more female to deliver, our silver gray Eliana, and she's due any day now, if our timing is right. Oh, I just love babies!!

Jumping on the Bandwagon??

The latest craze in the knit/crochet world is amigurumi. In Japanese, it means small knitted or crocheted toys. I think it's a requirement for them to be cute and easy to make in order to be considered amigurumi.

I went looking on the internet to see what I could find, and do you know that there are thousands of sites that feature nothing but these cute little critters? I had no idea. There are even sites dedicated to "monster" amigurumi creations. Go figure...

It seemed silly to pass up the opportunity to make some toys while they're in vogue, so here are my first attempts at making these adorable little guys. I'm not very adept at crochet, so they weren't quite as easy at first as the websites say they are, but I got the hang of it pretty fast. My biggest problem is making the faces. Embroidery and cross stitch baffle me to no end, so while the actual toy only took a few hours to complete, it took me 2 days to get the face on so it didn't look horrifying--another learning experience and another huge learning curve.

I started with the free patterns on the Lion Brand website, but there are hundreds of free patterns out there. The first one I made is a lion--just in case you can't tell what it's supposed to be. He actually looks more like a pop tart than an animal, but the fuzzy head helps his looks tremendously. I had trouble keeping track of my rounds and counting, so he's got one leg shorter than the other and one arm that's too fat. Oh well, forge onwards and upwards.


The second one is a bunny and I really hope that it's self-evident. I did a better job of counting and keeping the stitches in order. I like this one much more and I'm encouraged to continue on, even though it looks a little like it's showing signs of male pattern baldness with the placement of the ears. My daughter Abby is making a ducky that's going to be great and I'm working on a blue androgynous and nonspecific animal guy. We'll see what happens...



So here we are jumping on the bandwagon, but hey, everybody's doin' it!

Fibers and fleeces

The question has been asked, "What is the difference between fiber and yarn?" It's actually been asked more than once and I, in my wisdom, have neglected to actually give a meaningful answer. I forget that not everyone lives in my world, so here is my best effort at explaining fiber, at least in the terms that I'm familiar with.

Fiber is a raw material. It comes from plant sources (cotton, hemp, corn silk, flax, soy silk, bamboo, etc,) and from animal sources (wool, alpaca, mohair, silk, cashmere, angora, dog hair, llama, camel down, camel hair, etc.) All animals and all plants produce fiber in some form, but some are more usable than others and some fibers take some real creativity to find uses for them. I know absolutely nothing about plant fiber, so that's the last mention I'll make of that.




In my world, fiber is the bag of alpaca fleece you sink your hands into and breath in the earthy (and sometimes down right stinky) animal smell right after it comes off the animal, enjoying the total sensory experience--including the static electricity. It's still warm from the animal's body and the newly shorn ends look like a silk carpet.





It makes you groan slightly with the richness of color and luxurious softness. In my world, fiber is the mohair that smells and feels greasy until you wash and dry it so that it shines like silk and curls into perfect ringlets like doll hair. By the way, "fleece" is just another word for an animal's coat of hair that is harvested for use, usually some kind of wool. The blanket of an animal is the fiber that is shorn off of the sides, back, hips and shoulders. It the best fiber on the animal. The neck, leg, belly and...well... less desirable areas are normally either thrown away or used for things like garden mulch, lining chicken nests or animal bedding.

The first step in transforming raw fiber into something usable is skirting. This is where the entire fleece is spread out on a large mesh screen and sorted in order to remove impurities, unusable bits, and soiled fibers. During this phase, the wool is also sorted and graded according to fineness, color, and use. Some fiber will be coarse and straight (leg and belly hair) and most will be crimpy and soft (back, shoulder, neck, hip). Crimp is the wave in the fiber that gives it loft. Not all types of animal fleece will have crimp, but if crimp is a consideration, consistency in frequency and amplitude throughout the entire blanket area is important.



This first step is very important, as a poor job of skirting can ruin the fiber for it's intended use and create problems at every stage of processing. Imagine a gorgeous alpaca sweater in lilac and sage with tiny bits of hay stems scratching you every time you wear it!

After skirting, the fiber is washed and laid back out on the mesh screen to air dry. This is washed and dried alpaca ready for the either carding or combing. This animal has two colors in her blanket and the processed fiber should produce a tweedy marled looking yarn or felt.




If the fiber is agitated during the washing, it will mat itself into a shrunken, shaggy mess, beyond rescue and never to be used again. (How, exactly, would I know this? Experience, my dear, experience!) It will be a total loss, so the washing must be done by careful soaking with a mild soap and meticulous rinsing. I use my clothes washer only on the final spin cycle to spin out the rinse water. There's no matting and felting together as long as the whole mass moves in the same direction.

These fibers are mohair and they've been through a picker. You can see the huge sharp spikes in the picker and the resulting fluff. There are spikes on both top and bottom of this wicked thing and they pull the locks apart so they can be rearranged. Because mohair curls and twists, it benefits more than most fibers from being put through the picker unless you're using it for doll hair or spinning a curly novelty yarn. The young man running the picker is one of our Ranchers at Triangle Cross Ranch. He's decided that this is his niche and he loves running this machine--with heavy gloves and close supervision for safety.






After picking and fluffing, fiber is carded or combed in order to arrange the individual fibers so that they're all going basically the same direction. I like to dye raw fibers, right after washing because it adds interest to the carding and combing and it's ever so much fun to blend colors at this stage. Experimenting with different color combinations and imagining the finished products makes the work go quickly. (I've learned more about color theory on my drum carder than any class or instructor could have taught me.) Fiber off of a carding machine is called a batt or roving. If you're a quilter, you know what batting is and this is nearly the same, but made from natural animal fiber rather than polyfiber. You can use hand cards--two curved paddles with carding cloth (teeth) on each, but with the amount of fiber we produce a year, hand cards are kind of like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. The white batts are mohair and the brown/gray is alpaca.








From a comb, the fiber is called top or sometimes a roving. This is a thin, continuous "river" of fiber that is ready for spinning. Again, the tools of the trade offer long sharp spikes and look like weapons of mass destruction.





So far, the fiber has progressed from fresh raw fleece, to washed and dried fiber, to combed top or carded batts and rovings. From here, it can be spun into yarn, made into wet felt, needle felted, locker hooked or anything you can dream up. Up to this point, it's been pretty much all work and no play. Dyeing the raw fleece helps, but it's still a lot of production work and not always pleasant. It can be dirty and smelly work, although quite satisfying for me. I just love to see a huge pile of carded batts sitting on the table after a good day's work. More than that, I love to see fewer and fewer bags of raw fleece sitting in my barn.

Enough for now. More later on two preparations that I consider the bridges between fiber and finished goods and the beginnings of the creative process--the magical, incredible, wonderful process of felt and the meditative, reflective, sometimes tedious process of spinning. Just think, we'll be knitting in no time! Whoopee!

Contract Knitting and Winter Fun

My daughter and I have been knitting sherpa hats this week for a fellow alpaca breeder. They sent us a box full of yarn with loose directions to knit hats with ear flaps and tassels. This is what we've come up with so far. I'm not sure I would have chosen purple and yellow to go together exclusively, but apparently, those are the school colors where they live. Overall, I think the results are good, and we can proceed with the rest of the lot as soon as they look at the first shipment and give us the go ahead.

I'm so proud of my nearly 14 year old daughter. She can turn out a knitted sherpa in a single evening. She's not always motivated, but this time she's doesn't have to wait for the items to sell to get her money, so she's quite keen to get paid. It's a good lesson for her to learn--time is money--and she does good work in a short amount of time. She's got her procedure mapped out pretty well and I'll post it here for any interested knitters.

Materials: 250 yds. alpaca yarn DK or sport weight.
Size 7 circular needle (12-16 inch)
Size 7 double points
Scissors
Tapestry needle

Holding 2 strands together during all knitting, cast on 98 stitches and join without twisting. Knit in stocking stitch for 35 rounds. Add any color patterns, cables, lace or knit/purl patterns you like. Decrease as follows: K12, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. K11, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. K10, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. Continue in this fashion, changing over to double points when necessary. When you reach K5, K2tog, eliminate the plain round and decrease every round. Fasten off. This type of crown decrease will produce a swirl. If you prefer a straight decrease line, alternate K2tog with SSK every other decrease round.

Still holding two strands together, pick up 24 stitches along the bottom edge of the hat using one double point needle. Purl back. You will be knitting back and forth now. Begin decreasing on the stocking stitch side as follows: K1, K2tog, K to 3 stitches before end of row, K2tog, K1. Purl back. Continue these decreases until you have 12 stitches left on the needle and decrease on both the knit side and the purl side, one stitch in from the edge. When you have 4 stitches left, decrease the center two stitches and bind off all in the same row.

Pick up 24 stitches on the opposite side of the hat. Be sure that you pick up the stitches at least a third of the way back from the front so that the flaps will cover the ears and be far enough back from the eyes. (Flaps should NOT be centered, but towards the back of the hat.) Repeat above for second flap.

Finish the entire edge of the hat with a double or treble crochet edge. Wider is better, since stocking stitch rolls back on itself. Weave in all ends. Make cords and tassels using contrasting scrap yarn or the remaining yarn in the ball for the end of each ear flap and for the top. For the most durable finish, thread the cord through the flaps and the top, rather than sewing them on after the fact. We do knitted cord, twisted cord or braids and then leave a tasseled fringe on the bottom or attach a puff ball or other type of tassel. Traditional Peruvian sherpas have short cords and tassels, but Americans seem to prefer longer cords and heavier tassels. Your choice and your taste.

My youngest daughter and her friend spent nearly an entire weekend dressing up the cats in teddy bear clothes. Just another activity in their very busy winter social schedule. It's a good thing the cats are patient animals and tolerant of being dressed in drag.

Dash

This is Dash. He's seven months old, just weaning age, and he went into kidney failure last week. We rushed him to the vet when we noticed him laying down, listless and acting too friendly for an alpaca. Blood tests showed that he had a pretty severe infection--what and where we don't really know--and that his kidneys were shutting down. How can this happen so fast? The day before, Dash was running around the pen with the rest of the herd and eating and drinking.

Happily, Dash is recovering nicely and his body seems to have healed from the infection, thanks to a brilliant vet, some stout antibiotics, 500 units of I.V. fluids a day, and very dedicated intensive care nurse--me.

He's got some ground to make up with putting some weight back on, but he's been out of his warm little sick room and out with the herd in the barn. It's pounding snow outside, so the barn doors will be closed to keep him inside. It's amazing to me how quickly an animal will perk up when he sees his herd. Dash was barely moving around, scooting from place to place because he was too weak to get up on his own, wetting himself for the same reason, and when I took him outside with me while I fed the animals in the barn, he saw his mama and started wobbling around on his feet. Now, three days later, he's getting around so well that I can't catch him, he's eating everything he can get to, and pushing to get to the water. He's not 100% yet, but very nearly. The turning point was getting him back out with his herd mates.

So, 10 days after the initial crisis, Dash is up and seems to be healthy, albeit more than a bit thin for the experience. He hates me now. I think he keeps waiting for me to grab him and poke him with needle or force something down his throat, just like I have for the last 10 days. I'm sure he thinks I caused it all, and who's to say I didn't? I'm responsible for the well being of my herd and if I dropped the ball, I guess he has every right to hate me. He'll be my reminder to remain vigilant and on guard for parasites, infections, and disease. It's my job after all and I'm so thankful that Dash has come through it alive and well. Tragedy averted.

Work, work, work...or is it?

This is where I work, at least this is my indoor work space. We created this space by covering the west side of our outside porch. The wind in the winter drives at us from the north west, so covering the porch also served the purpose of protecting the west side and preserving our heating fuel. We installed a wood stove and the place is quite cozy in the winter, although pretty hot in the late afternoon during the summer.

The other reason we created this space was so that my husband could sit down in the evening without sitting on yet another project and without sitting on...stepping in...tripping over knitting needles and paraphernalia.

I usually spin on a Lendrum wheel, but it seems that my daughter prefers my wheel over hers, so I've taken to spinning on my mother's wheel. My mother, who was a hard worker and a farm woman from the ground up, passed away in November 2006 and I think it's fitting that her wheel be put to good use. She had an Ashford wheel and it works just fine for me. It's nice to be able carry on with something that my mother put so much time and effort into.

The first pair of socks are finished and blocking on the counter. I hope the lady likes them, otherwise, I guess I'll have to sell them elsewhere or send them to my sister in New York for Christmas. She adores hand knit alpaca socks when they have six feet of snow on the ground in the winter.

The first three skeins of my daughter's "Bethy" yarn, as we call it, are done. It's a little too loose for my taste but we'll see how it knits up.

I couldn't resist adding a picture of one of our black beauties. She's a 4 month old cria and her name is Onyx. Doesn't she make you want to hug her?

Rain, Goats and Yarn

Another cloudy, rainy day today. That's two in a row and it's wonderful. We're used to lots of sun, a lot of wind, browns and greens. With the rain, everything looks so green. The weather is cooling off quickly and just in time to chase away the flies and bugs. The corn fields are bare and brown, so the green is refreshing.

Even our old barn looks tolerable surrounded by green. We've been hoping this barn would blow over for years now, but even though it looks like it's fixing to fall over, it's probably the strongest building on our place. Such an ugly barn, but it serves its purpose. So much of our place is made up of old wood, "jerry rigged" fencing and old outbuildings, but you know, they just keep on doing their jobs. I suppose there are worse things than old buildings and fences.......like no buildings or fences, I guess!

His Royal Hugeness Hermes is standing out in the rain, seeming to enjoy it. He's in his prime and at his stinkiest this time of year. He can't wait for the girls to arrive in his pen the first of December. I think he uses way too much aftershave for my taste, but his girls just swoon over him and think he's beeeautiful! He does do his job, however and seems to enjoy being the sole breeding male on the place.

My daughter is spinning a bumpy novelty yarn from Mr. Hermes' fleece (extra well washed, of course) blended with a black alpaca from our black beauty, Solace. The combination creates a lovely dark charcoal color that we're plying with a silver thread. I think it's going to be great. It amounts to three skeins of about 200 yards each, so not quite enough for a sweater. She's got her work ahead of her to get enough done, but she's only about half way through the batch of rovings.