Georgia Alpaca & Fiber Festival

Yes!  Those are cupcakes with adorable little knit cupcake decorations made of icing adorning their sweet pink tops!  When you see these in the entry way of a Festival you know for sure you have arrived at the place to be for a fun filled fiber weekend!

The Georgia Alpaca and Fiber Festival was a great first year festival.  They had contacted me several months prior about teaching a few classes over the course of the week end.  I am so glad I went  And as always, as things often go with me, I do have a little story to go along with!!

The day before leaving my throat was a wee bit sore and scratchy.  Needless to say, upon waking, I had a full fledged head cold.  You know, the snotty nosed, sniffly, watery eye, throat so scratchy it hurt to swallow.  Yep, one of those.  

A trip to the pharmacy later, I was stocked up on cough drops, pain killers & cold meds.  Honestly, it really was not as bad as it sounds.  The congestion was the worst and being completely wiped at the end of the day was no fun, but as far as sickness goes it was fairly smooth going:)  Unfortunately, it did not let up until after the very last workshop I gave!

And that brings us to the classes.  Had an absolute blast being the instructor for 3 classes:  Coming Unspun about knitting with fibers; the Science of Carding which is about carding smooth batts, art batts and making roving; the Fundamentals of Dyeing where we tackle not one, but 3 different methods of dying! 

Have to admit, I hated for the Festival to end.  The committee members were absolutely awesome and just so very wonderful.  Attendees were so very kind and a really joy to share knowledge with.  And there was a great selection of lovely fibers to choose from!  How could anyone want the week end to be over, even if they had a nasty little head cold!?!

Welcome meeting with some fabulous door prizes!

This batt was carded completely with teeswater locks!  Is that not cool or what?

Carding alpaca

Some merino about to head through the carder after the alpaca.

Look who made the most beautiful ball of roving ever! And I'm not kidding, her roving was the most perfectly made rope I have ever seen in one of my classes!

Wish I had remembered to take pics of my other classes, but I was a bit more concerned with keeping my germs to myself:)  Oh well, next time!

Location:Georgia Alpaca & Fiber Fest

For Chris

I feel very bad that I have not had much of a chance to spin fiber for Chris.  Not sure if you remember or not, but I have been spinning 1 pound of each of her alpacas' fleece.  Her sister is then crocheting the yarn into a bed spread for Chris.  With life getting a little in the way, I have not had much free time here lately to spin the alpaca.  Just last month though, I made it a point to make a little more time for this project.

On the bottom, is the last skein of Canty and the top is the first skein of Camigula.  Have to say, Camigula's fleece is absolutely divine and I love how well it spins!

The next skein of Camigula will have some sparkly added!  Not sure if it will be dyed or not.  That could be fun though!

Had to drive up to Lexington during the morning rush hour this week.  I completely have forgotten what rush hour is like and I was lucky to have my little cowl project to keep me busy at the Harrodsburg Rd / New Circle Rd cross over mess.  In all honesty, the traffic moved fairly smoothly until coming to this point and then a little further down the road there was a wreck.  Outside of that not much of an issue.  Mind you, I don't EVER want to have to willing drive in rush hour traffic again unless I absolutely have to!

This is what has been keeping me busy for the past week.  A monster of a fleece that was just dying to be cleaned and dyed!

Before dying the locks are separated and then painted with care and a bit of whimsy.  They have a lovely 6 inch or more staple and I can't wait to spin up a sample from the left overs!

After drying they are bundled into 1/2 ounce lots ready for the show season to start next week.  I promise to add them to the etsy site after show season is over;)

Craft or Bust and Then Some...

So far, this has been a very very busy spring for me. Thus the lack of proper posting on the blog. At the moment, I am hand painting a Louet S17 spinning wheel kit that will be shipped to Russia hopefully by the end of the week! Keeping my fingers crossed. So far, I have one side of the main wheel and all supporting frame pieces painted. Next to go are the flyer and bobbin parts! Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel:)

What the S17 looks like when it arrives.

After lightly sanding w/ 320 paper and ready for the first coat of paint.

Painted a Russian Tortoise on one side. The other side will be a pond with turtles around it.

All supporting beams are painted coffee brown with metallic turquoise dots.

Next on the agenda is one of the craft or bust projects! I really do feel bad that I have not had much of a chance to post more about the craft or bust project. As I'm getting ready for the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival next month. I sent 3 more skeins to Chris to send to her Sister and have a new skein on the bobbon. The single and fiber you are seeing are from Canty a lovely white alpaca Chris previously owned. Can't tell you how lovely this stuff really is!

Canty on the wheel

Canty punis

Craft of Bust!!! - 2/23

Well, I have definitely been a busy gal over the past day and night. Yesterday I finished spinning a bobbin of Chris's alpaca, Canty, fleece.

I was ready to ply and wouldn't you know it I had all bobbins on the Louet Victoria with singles of some sort or another on them. The first bobbin was about 1/2 full with a merino, silk, camel, firestar, glitz batt I am taking my time with. The second had just a smidgen of a 'fine wool and mohair blend' I purchased online because the colors were so lovely in the picture. I don't really care much for it as the wool is rather a little on the coarse side and in person it definitely does not look like the picture. The third bobbin is of course full of the alpaca single.

What to do, what to do? Should I start on my taking-my-time-in-between-other-projects bobbin or bite the bullet and finish spinning the 'not so fine wool and mohair blend'. In the spirit of my goals with the Craft or Bust project, to finish UFO's, I opted to finish spinning the stuff I don't really care for at all. The end result was 128 yards of Plain-Jane yarn with muted hints of color here and there that is not so soft even after washing.

I stood up for just a second to stretch my legs after plying when Little Kitty who is not quite so little any more decided to take a go at the wheel or at least pretend like he was spinning. Silly kitty, doesn't he know that spinning is just for Momma?

Alpaca VS 46 TPI

Well, I thought it was time to put it to the test. Put what to the test you say? Well, the whole idea that you need a higher TPI, Teeth Per Inch, to card alpaca using a drum carder.

It all started with a request from one of my customers over at LunabudKnits. She has alpacas and was wondering about how well alpaca could be carder with the Louet's 72 TPI. I had finally saved enough money that I could get one of the Louet Classic Drum Carders which has a 46 TPI. So off to the carder I went.

Here are the results. I picked the alpaca yearling fleece prior to carding and then sent it through the carder about 3 times. I have found that sending raw fleece through the carder a minimum of three times will properly open the fibers regardless of whether I am using the old 120 TPI carder or the new 46 TPI carder. As you can see from the photos, it turned out rather well!

Puni & Craftiness or Bust Post

In the last post I said I would show you how to make a puni with a drum carder. In the event you are unfamiliar with what a 'puni or punis' is.... It is a hand carding preparation traditionally used with cotton fibers prior to spinning in which the cotton is rolled off the carder using 1-2 sticks to make a tube of fibers.

I use two large knitting needles and one of the drum carding herd (yep, I have a herd of carding tools:) to accomplish this with alpaca and wool. Sometimes I will spin directly from the puni, but for the larger part I prefer to pull it out into roving prior to spinning. My favorite thing about using punis is that you can really cut down on storage space for your batts as it compacts the fibers. Secondly, it helps the fibers come off the drum much more cleanly. And last but not least, you don't have to spin from the puni or pull it into roving. It is very simple to find the end of the batt and unroll it for big batt spinning.

Here are the steps laid out: And PS.... The fiber I am using is from Chris's alpaca so it is technically part of the Craft or Bust 2010;)

#1 After carding your batt stop here and go get your sticks or needles.

#2 Sandwich the batt between the needles like so.

#3 Start to roll the batt off the drum using the needles

Not really as step, but I wanted to show you how cleanly the batt comes off the drum.

#4 Before reaching the end of the batt drop your doffer on top of the tightly rolled puni. This helps to lay the fibers down and keep the puni in formation. Give it a few extra turns under the doffer. Don't worry if you do not have a doffer brush, here is what you do: Continue to roll the puni along the carding cloth surface after all the fiber has been picked up. Check it periodically to see if the roll is tight. Also note, you can do this for too long, so roll it just enough so that when you set the puni down it does not automatically want to unroll.

#5 See how tight. Now pull out the needles or sticks.

The end result.

Here I have pulled a bit of the puni into roving to show you.

This is not part of the puni demo. But, it is apart of my Craft or Bust Challenge. The three white balls on the Louet carder are more of the BFL from Sylvia's sheep now carded and ready to be spun. I have about one ounce on the wheel so far and these three weigh in a little bit over 4 ounces. I should be able to fill up my fiber hungry Louet S17's bobbin with a little room to spare;)

Junk in the Trunk

All new Junk in the Trunk batts are up at LunabudKnits!

For Chris's Sister

What a jerk I am. In my whirlwind of fixing the new home and moving all at once, I completely forgot to mail the yarn I had spun for Chris's sister. Chris, here it is. I still have the address and hopefully I can get it mailed out tomorrow. I do hope she likes it and enjoy using it. Am finishing up Dodger hopefully this week and then on to the next critter.