Ami Alpaca?

What kind of name does this little beast get? Amigurumi Alpaca? Alpagarumi? Ami Alpaca? Amipacarumi? Amialgapacarumi?

He was fun to make and really boosts my confidence when it comes to crochet. He's a combination of several patterns that I found by two different authors. I used Tamoko Takamori's donkey pattern and Ana Paula Rimoli's hedgehog pattern to get all the pieces I needed. The proportions aren't the same as their patterns, but that's where I started. He's made out the odds and ends of my own handspun alpaca yarn, which seems appropriate.

Now he just needs a name...

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!

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.

Yarn, yarn, yarn!!!

The first of my mill processed yarn has arrived. I send in about 80% of my fleeces to a mill for processing because I could never keep up with hand processing and hand spinning all of it. I keep the show fleeces and most of the grays to hand spin. It's also cheaper for a customer to purchase. Mill spun sells for between $12 and $18 per skein and hand spun sells for $25-30 a skein.

This is harvest for me, when I get to see nearly all of my alpaca fleeces in their yarn form. It's an exciting time for us all because the next step is to dye it. We'll do solids, dip dyes, space dyes, hand paints--you name it and we'll do it. We've never been very good at keeping track of our dye lots or our methods. It's just too much fun to apply color and let the chips fall where they may. This year, however, I have some customers who are asking for repeats of previous years, so it's time to start measuring (no! not that!), keeping records and sample cards, and trying to be more consistent.

My blacks, browns, and fawns will come in next week and I'll have close to 100 pounds of yarn to sell. Obviously, we can't dye blacks and darks, but as we found last year, the fawns and light browns dye up with terrific results. The colors are muted and earthy, rather than clear and bright. The grays give us rich jewel colors. Over course, we'll save back some of each natural color to sell as is, but the greatest fun of the season is the dyeing.

For those of us who have a serious yarn addiction, pictures like this can evoke tremors, salivating and even faints as we contemplate the possibilities and future adventures. If you're one of those, just wait until you see the pictures after the lot has been dyed. If you're one whose spouse has put out a cease and desist order on your yarn spending, I'm sorry for you. I'm sure we'll still have yarn left when the order is lifted!

I've requested some lighter weights this year--sport, fingering and lace--as well as some suri yarn. In case you've never heard of suri's, they are the type of alpaca whose fleece grows in twists and lock, rather than perpendicular to the body like wool. The look is kind of a "bed head" look, or somewhat like dread locks. They're amazing animals and there are much fewer of them around than the typical wool alpaca which is called a huacaya. Suri yarn is much more lustrous and behaves more like silk than wool, although it's wonderfully warm and less is more when working with it. A bulky or worsted suri yarn is overkill and the price per ounce for yarn ($15 and up) would break the bank, so we've got fingering and lace weights to work with.

We had three suri's until this year when they were sold to a new home in Pennsylvania earlier this fall. The first was a complete surprise to us when she was born. Her mother was a black huacaya and when her baby popped out, we didn't quite know what to think or what to do with her. She was the strangest baby we'd ever seen. As it turns out, the breeder we bought the mom from didn't realize that either the males got out and an accidental breeding happened or some other mistake happened and we got a half suri baby. I'm not posting a picture of her because she is ghastly looking by breed standards.

The offspring of this first suri became my favorite baby. Her name is Esme and she was born during a cold front, complete with sub-zero temps and driving winds. Her mama had not a drop of milk, so Esme came to live in my laundry room. For 11 days we bottle fed her and took her outside 4-5 times a day (with her little jacket on) to be with the herd and her mama. After 11 days, miracle of miracles, she took to nursing. Our vet was surprised, saying he'd never heard of any animal nursing after that length of time. So, Esme...not a high quality animal, but very sweet. The final suri was a little boy we called Tanner, born this year in June. Thankfully, all three went to the same excellent home and I'm out of the suri business. Whew!

So... I'm looking forward to digging into the dyes, but I'll wait until my sister arrives from Peru. I need her eyes and her judgment because I've put together some awful color combinations and my yarn is precious. I can't really afford to ruin any of it. To be fair, I've done nice combos, too, but two minds are better than one, don't you think?

Fawn sweater

I don't have any beautiful models here today, except Celeste, and she has declined to do a photo shoot today. Models! Sheeesh! Who knew they were so finicky about things! It turns out that the sleeves on this sweater are not very complimentary to her particular body type (four legs and a curly tail), so I tucked a dark scarf inside the sweater to show the stitching and the motifs to a better advantage:



The sweater is of medium fawn alpaca yarn with a crocheted tie closure; bell sleeves; shell edging.