Alpaca shawl

One of my favorite fibers to work with is alpaca. It comes in beautiful natural colors and can be very soft. You can spin it without washing it first since it doesn't have lanolin to hinder the fibers slipping. I bought my first few alpaca fleeces online (see this post) but I've since been lucky enough to find a local alpaca farm, Ah Sweet Alpacas. I've demonstrated spinning there for National Alpaca Farm Days, and this year I worked with a lovely rose grey fleece from First Tuesday, aka Rosie (see this post).

I spun some lovely two ply lace yarn from Rosie's fleece and set out to make a lace shawl as a surprise gift for her owner. I initially wanted to design my own lace pattern. The design process was slow going and I put the project aside and almost forgot about it until I was asked how it was coming along by Bruce, the owner of Ah Sweet Alpacas. He mentioned Ag Day at the state capitol would be a great time to present the shawl...if it were done in time. That was towards the end of February and I hadn't actually started knitting, so with a deadline a month away, I picked the "Barbara" pattern from Myrna Stahman's Shawls and Scarves book of Faroese style lace shawls started knitting.

Although I make glass knitting needles for sale, I have to admit I use circular needles much more than straight needles (I also rarely use needles over 2.75mm dia but that's another story). This shawl was a great opportunity for me to use (gasp) 4mm needles (US 6) and to work with my own glass needles. I started out with a cute pair of chihuahuas. Part way through my mad knitting dash I went to Monterey for my birthday weekend and got to do my favorite bike ride along the coast into the 17 mile drive where I stopped and knit for a while. Here's a close up of the chihuahua on the needle top:

Frighteningly, the above picture was taken 9 days before the shawl was finished. I was really busy the week after I got back from Monterey between veterinary work and making glass knitting needles for Monarch Knitting & Quilts so didn't get to knit much until the weekend. I stayed up until 3:30 one morning for a marathon spinning session to make up more yarn. I switched knitting needles to try out a different one of my pairs. Here's a photo of the new skein along with the knitting in progress:Detail:
Another late night of knitting until 4am then a bit more in the morning on Tuesday and the shawl was ready to be blocked. I ran to the hardware store for some brass rods to use for blocking. Faroese shawls are supposed to have a butterfly shape with the "wings" extending way up so they can drape over the shawls and stay in place without a shawl pin. I don't have a blocking board, we don't have any carpet and my bed is lofted (about 1.5-3ft from the ceiling) so I blocked on the couch which didn't give me quite enough room but it worked ok.
The finished shawl:

Calpaca had a booth at Ag Day, including alpacas and an exhibit of alpaca fiber, roving, yarn and woven and knitted items. I loved meeting alpaca owners and seeing their handwork. Debbie of Brookfarm demonstrated spinning outside the alpaca pen.Debbie wove the amazing green and brown doubleweave scarf to the right below.
The houndstooth scarf on the left and the blankets on the table are produced by Pendelton Woolen Mills from alpaca grown in the US as part of an exciting project by US alpaca farms to reach a wider market.

Bruce brought three of his alpacas along with First Tuesday and people got to meet them and see how soft they are. Here he is talking alpacas:

We presented the shawl as a surprise gift to First Tuesday's owner, Assemblymember Linda Halderman. First Tuesday sniffed it and wasn't impressed. She's grown since I saw her in September.
It was great to be able to show legislators and the general public what can be made with alpaca and show them the finished item, the fleece and the animal it came from.

Lambtown

Some weekends there are just too many fun things to do. Recently Full Belly Farm hosted Hoesdown, a harvest celebration, on the same weekend as Dixon had Lambtown, a celebration of the sheep industry (and Calpaca joined in with an alpaca show) and San Francisco had Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a big free music festival in Golden Gate Park.

I spent Saturday at Lambtown. I'd meant to just go for a short time, dash in, say hi to my friends in the sheep to shawl competition, say hi to Bruce and Joan and their alpacas and restock my mohair supply. But Lambtown has gotten big. Dixon is a small town of about 18000, close to Davis, and Lambtown used to be this little event where they shut down a few blocks in the center of town and had a lamb cook off on the street with some vendors and a few people demonstrating spinning and weaving in a not very large room. Now it's at the fairgrounds and there is a giant warehouse full of people selling fiber arts related things and supplies, there's a long walkway lined with vendors, everything from people selling wool and knitting needles, to sunglasses and bonsai. There was a lot to see.

I was wondering how to find Ah...Sweet Alpacas when I ran into Bruce walking Phantom around to garner interest in the alpacas which were tucked away in a corner of the fairgrounds. I got to show Bruce and Joan the finished yarn that I'd started at their farm. Meanwhile, my old sheep-to-shawl team of the Silverado Guild made a beautiful lacy shawl out of wool and alpaca to win the competition and after the excitement was over, I was able to visit with some folks I hadn't seen for a while. I ran into three ladies from Anne's Web, the spinning guild in Salinas that was one of my favorite things about being in that area. We had a good fibery talk while we waited and waited and waited for the wool show to finish their judging so we could buy fleeces.

My goal had been to buy a kid mohair fleece and knitting needles for the rose-grey alpaca shawl and nothing more. There were so many tempting things, so setting myself a goal was really wise. But the farm where I'd been hoping to buy mohair brought fleeces for the show, but didn't have a booth and I was about to give up when my friend Vera found some gorgeously silky kid mohair from Janet Heppler's Nebo Rock Ranch. It was a small fleece, so I bought it. Then the wool show sale opened and I ended up buying the first place mohair fleece from Eureka Mohair, the farm I'd been looking for (and I think it's the ranch that produced the first mohair I ever bought, a batt of natural red yearling). That kid must be enjoying life, lots of dirt and vegetable matter, but the curl and shine are amazing.

Here's a photo of some Eureka Mohair Farm kid mohair in a new bag I sewed to store the picked locks:

National Alpaca Farm Days

National Alpaca Farm Days this year was September 24th and 25th. I did a spinning demonstration at a nearby alpaca farm two years ago but missed last year, so I was excited that they asked me back this year. Spinning alpaca among the alpacas for 6 hours, what could be better?

Charlie joined me and we spent Sunday out at Ah...Sweet Alpacas, an alpaca farm between Vacaville and Winters. As always, the alpacas were cute.

Joan and Bruce were very welcoming and there were two girls who've been helping out with the alpacas and were eager to share their knowledge with visitors. Here's a photo of Charlie talking with Joan over the fiber boy pen. Now is a great time to get alpacas. These sweet fellows are for sale for $500 for two (you need at least two!) and less if you get more.

Amazingly (for september), it started to sprinkle on the way over, and it was overcast and sprinkling for much of the day. Fewer people came Sunday than Saturday, but we had a steady trickle of visitors. Luckily there was still time to visit with the alpacas. This is Cayenne, the matriarch of the girls.

Here is Sabrina. Bruce says she's the sweetest! Here's Rosie posing for the camera:
Joan gave me Rosie's seconds to spin. One of the great things about alpacas is their range of natural colors, 16 distinct shades. Rosie has a beautiful variegated rose-grey fleece (sheared last spring).
And here's the yarn I'm spinning.A photographer for Fairfield's paper, the Daily Republic, took a photo of me spinning, wearing one of my felted shawls...this one is silk and alpaca, naturally.
Alpaca is one of my favorite fibers to spin because it can be wonderfully soft and you can often spin it raw without further preparation after shearing. Unlike sheep wool, alpaca doesn't have lanolin, so as long as you don't mind the dust, you can spin it without washing it. (You can spin raw sheep wool, but depending on the amount of lanolin and how warm it is, it can be much more difficult to draft than washed wool, and the lanolin gets all over your hands and wheel). I started out demonstrating how to spin from the "cloud"--just fluffing up a bunch of alpaca and spinning. I also showed how to comb the alpaca using my mini combs, then spin from roving. Got a lot of spinning done, got in a few plugs for the Craft Center ("learn to spin at the CC!") and even got one lady excited about raising silkworms. Good day.

The sun finally came out towards the end of the day. And I saw firsthand why some of the alpaca I spin is so darn dusty.

Sewing Machine with Koi...it was meant to be

My fish spinning wheel is finally nearing completion and is actually functional for spinning off the spindle.
I'd neglected gravity a bit when I designed it so it wanted to lean backwards. I tried to compensate by adding extra wings on the base, but it still seemed flimsy. I finally gave in and designed a new base which is heavier and so makes it a little more heavy/complicated to pack up the wheel for travel, but it should still be able to be packed up for travel more easily than my saxony wheel. I have some more sanding/finishing to do as well as completing the flyers, but it is finally so close. I'm also thinking of inlaying the new base to match the treadles. Here's a close-up of the inlaid treadles:

At any rate, I've been wanting a treadle sewing machine for a while. I already have a very lovely 1947 Singer sewing machine that Aaron had refurbished for me, and I'm not that much of a seamstress, so I didn't really need another sewing machine, but I did really want one. What if there was an extended blackout?

So I might have been perusing Craigslist once in a while. And I might have happened across an ad for a machine right here in Davis. The couple selling it were very nice and when I went over to their house to check it out, they had a very friendly orange kitty who offered to assist, i.e. sit on my feet. The decals are pretty worn, but they're koi!--matches my koi spinning wheel. And the cabinet is in great shape and is oak which matches Steve's new cabinets, so he agreed the sewing machine can live in the living room. (My room is a little packed.)


Here she is closed:open:
And sewing the hems of some handwoven towels: (I took the towels off the loom ages ago and never finished the edges. It took buying a new sewing machine to finish them.)

Detail of the cabinet carving. Ok so it's a flowery flourish, but doesn't it look like koi?
And look--definitely koi!
The drawers are in good shape with pretty carvings.
And interesting innards:
There are quite a few attachments, and I've been trying to figure out what they are and how to use them. That's quite a step for me since I've never used any alternative feet even on modern machines. I've sewn all my zippers by hand in fear and ignorance of the zipper foot. Here's the box helpfully marked "Attachments"I bought a book on sewing machine attachments, so here's what I think I have:

Ruffler:Tucker:

Quilting guide:

If I'm wrong with any of my labeling, please let me know! And if you have a recommendation for learning how to use them, I'd appreciate references as well. The book I got was not as helpful as I'd like.

Shiny Fancies: Part 2--Head Cups

Ceramics is a class I took early on at the Craft Center, but never really got into it. My problem was that I'm not good at throwing, and when I went in to practice, I spent hours making mud. Mud between the fingers is very nice and soothing, but I kind of wanted to be throwing mugs and bowls and nice pretty useful things. I'd make a couple wonky vessels, then not set food in the ceramics studio for another couple years until something would spur me to try again.

Glass I like. And glass can be attached to ceramics. So I do ceramics in order to attach glass to it. And I keep practicing because maybe one of these days, something will click and my body will balance and out will come a symmetrical bowl. Until then...

I made these head cups to practice throwing off the hump. It was wonderfully freeing; since I was going to connect and sculpt the thrown shapes, it was ok if they weren't wonderful and even and it was totally fine if they leaned and had thin spots. I threw tiny saucers for the bases/necks and larger cups for the heads and didn't care if they got all distorted when I took them off the wheel.
I snapped photos of myself making different faces to sculpt the expressions, then flameworked glass eyes. Each eye was made as a miniature marble with the structure of a real eye: retina backing a clear posterior chamber then the colored iris surrounding a clear window (the lens/pupil) to the back of the eye with more clear glass (cornea) in front then white wrapped around the back for the sclera. The hot glass eyes were then squished into the clay so there would be more surface area to glue. Worked great except you can't see the eyes really well on some of the cups. Some of the girls got earrings and nose rings as well. The hair is from various sheep, alpaca and goat fleeces. Head #4 above has cormo (a very soft breed of sheep) locks from hogget 910 of Cormo Sheep and Wool Farm in Orland, California.
Head #2 above has suri alpaca locks from "Juan Valdez" of Smooth as Silk Alpaca Ranch in Deerborn, Wisconsin.

Head #3 has merino cross locks from Humble Hills Sheep and Wool Farm in Franklin, Missouri.

Head #1 has yearling mohair locks from "Otter" of Eureka Mohair Farm in Tollhouse, California.

As head cups, they obviously needed their heads filled with something besides hair. I usually work quite small; the class I teach is titled "Tiny Glass Sculptures" for a reason, but for this show, I branched out and made BIG marbles. Making big marbles is hot!

Next: more ceramics, i.e. things for glass attachment