You spin me right round baby

Let’s get this out of the way right now: I still cannot knit. Yes, I’m frustrated. Yes, all I want is to sit and crack out a few hours of baby blanket. Yet in the meantime I am thoroughly enjoying a few other things.

Most of all? Spinning.

Last year at the Knitter’s Frolic in Toronto I bought a Turkish Spindle. I also bought some fluff, by which I mean alpaca roving. Later that year, I went on vacation via an alpaca farm and bought some very nice roving there, too.

I did nothing with any of it.

This year at the Knitter’s Frolic, I had no desire to look at or purchase yarn. After all, I can’t use it. I’m taking that personally and holding a grudge against yarn in general despite the fact it’s my stupid posture that did the damage, logic has no place in a frustrated knitter’s mind. Since yarn was out of the picture, I bought more fluff.

This time the fluff was 300g of organic superfine merino roving. Folks, it’s like touching a cloud. I had emotions. It’s beautiful and I love it.

When I got home, I picked up some of the roving from Nuevo Norte Alpacas and gave it a go. I watched ten minutes of a fifteen minute YouTube video on what to do and decided I was an expert, and off I went.

It didn’t go too badly! (It also didn’t go well.)

If you ask me, I’ll tell you it’s art yarn. That’s what anyone with bumpy, uneven yarn says, right?

I’ve tried a few times and even got to plying pretty quickly which was a lot of fun. Then, because now I obviously know everything there is to know (pahahaha) I bought some Malabrigo Nube and spun that, too.

This is actually going quite well, even if I’m doing it wrong (I am, but I won’t tell you how in case some spinners out there have a heart attack. I won’t be responsible for the carnage.)

It’s mostly even, at least compared to my last attempts. I’m about halfway in which means I can start on the second lot soon and then ply it. I’m loving it, and it’s making me feel like I can eventually start spinning with the cloud of merino.

One day.

In the meantime, a good friend of mine asked me to show her how to use her Turkish spindle. Amy is a very talented knitter and also the reason I have even heard of the Knitter’s Frolic, plus she offered to feed me, so I went over last Sunday morning and brought my spinning. I gave her some bad instructions, mostly on what not to do, and she magically made this.

I think she’s probably an alien.

Do I have any other spinners in my midst? Tell me your secrets! Show me your wares! Don’t look too closely at my pictures for fear of the uneven wonkiness!

Do you love alpaca yarn too?

If you saw my last post about Nuevo Norte Alpacas and my trip into a little world full of alpaca-based happiness, you will know that I one day intend to keep alpacas.

Why? Well, the first time I felt alpaca yarn my mind was blown. I knew on a vague level that alpacas were a thing, but alpaca turned into my gateway drug into the world of fancy, soft, fluffy, amazing fibre. One small skein of pale blue baby alpaca/silk and I was sold on the world of fibre.

That project was one of the early documented ones on the blog, back in December 2011. I had been knitting for about a year and a friend send me the yarn. I found a nice pattern for fingerless mitts, something I’d never needed so badly before I knitted, and spent some of the worst weeks of my life knitting them. I was sick, I was in pain, and I’d had to postpone my year in Canada due to all of the above. (The picture to the side is from when I was bed-bound for a few weeks, and the featured cat is Disney who hated almost everyone but loved me so, so much. Especially when I didn’t move for a while.)

By December I was better and ready to go, but there’s a reason I called them ‘Escapism Mitts’. They gave me the space to enjoy texture and colour and the process of knitting instead of dwelling on the difficulties at the time.

I still have and use the mitts and they still look fabulous.

Since then I would have to say alpaca has remained close to my top spot in terms of my favourite fibre. I knit with wool more often as I knit socks pretty much constantly, but when I have an excuse for alpaca I don’t often resist.

How does that translate into wanting to keep alpacas myself?

My girlfriend and I are animal lovers. We surround ourselves with them, her even more than me (at her work). One day we plan to have a small farm – one they call here a ‘hobby farm’ – and keep a few choice animals. We’ll have alpacas (because I’m deadly serious about it), goats, chickens, horses. Maybe a few cows one day.

I mean, ideally I’d like to have an enormous herd of merino sheep but as I would spend all day running around hugging those giant puffballs, I’ll stick to alpacas.

Just look at this fluffy asshole. – Merino, Glen Orkney, Awatere, Marlborough, New Zealand, CC BY 2.0.

Wait, alpacas are also giant puffballs. Maybe I should reconsider. (I won’t.)

Do you like alpacas? Would you ever like to keep animals for their fibre? If you do already, how do you find it?

 

An Alpaca Surprise

It’s wonderful to get away for a while. In the middle of July we packed up our things into a car that is much smaller than it looks from the outside, like a sort of reverse TARDIS, and drove a few hours along the edge of Lake Ontario with our knees by our chins. It’s been a long time since I went camping and I had no idea what to expect from a Canadian campsite, so I was excited for new experiences (and hopefully raccoons).

As we drove through the gorgeous Southern Ontario countryside my head whipped around when my girlfriend pointed out a field full of alpacas. I noticed the sign ‘gift shop’ and tried to be polite and say we could maybe stop on the way back? If we had time? Except somehow I gave in and we turned around, pulled into the yard, and descended upon the friendliest alpaca farmer I’ve ever met.

We’ll pretend I’ve met more than one.

The farm was Nuevo Norte Alpacas in Colborne, and the owner – I believe her name was Amy – opened up the gift shop just for us. Well, me. My girlfriend and her mum weren’t in it for the fibre.

Nuevo Norte

She showed us down to the gift shop and I told her that one day I wanted to keep alpacas, and she was super helpful. I feel as though I learned more in that half an hour than anything I’ve learned before. She explained the entire philosophy behind how she cares for the alpacas (and she has 80+ so she should know), and that she got into it for the fibre as much as anything else.

I bought two sets of roving and a beautiful grey lopi yarn from their flock, and geeked out about knitting and spinning. On the way back Amy (I think) showed me the wild woad growing on her land which I had never seen in person – only in pictures. She brought us to the pen full of pregnant alpacas or those who had recently given birth, plus some thoroughly adorable crias (babies). I learned that alpacas all poop in the same spot in the field and that crias will stand for a long time in that spot with nothing happening while they’re still nursing. This entertained me more than it should.

I know this isn’t the kind of image you came here to see, but you’re welcome! 😀

Though I cannot get back out there easily for now as I don’t drive, once I do – and have some spare time – I will be going back. My aim to one day keep alpacas is sincere and I think I’ve found a place that would be perfect to learn more.

If you’re ever passing through, check out Nuevo Norte Alpacas. They do tours and workshops and classes, and they have some gorgeous fibre for sale.

An Intense but Fleeting Love Affair

Isn’t it strange?

One day I was knitting away with the gold and pale purple cotton/alpaca/wool mix and absolutely loving it. I could not get enough. I knitted it all day then went home and carried on while watching Daredevil at home.

It was the linen stitch. I love it and hadn’t played with it for a while; the yarn fitted it so well I couldn’t stop.

And then I finished it, cast off, and held it out in front of me.

Nah, I said. I don’t really like this.

It’s not that it’s not pretty. It is! I love it! And it’s soft and unusual and just what I had in mind when I cast on. Yet it’s not me. I don’t wear these colours yet continually pick yarns in these shades or similar – I have a shawl at work I use when I’m cold that’s a paler version of these colours. It does not suit me, but it’s work so I don’t care.

I’m not sure what to do with this cowl. I’m considering giving it away on here to someone who likes it – maybe even having a contest or something to celebrate hitting 1,000 email followers (something coming very soon). Maybe I’ll just find someone I know who loves it and throw it at them.

For now it’s at Martina’s as a sample for the yarn and maybe that’s where it’ll stay instead.

Hat.

This is not the hat I knit for Martina at Kniterary, but it’s made from the same yarn in a different colourway.

It is not a hat for this weather. I tried: this morning I pulled it over my ears and about thirty seconds later sincerely wished I’d brought a real winter hat. As much as I try to kid myself it really is time for the hardcore clothes here in southern Ontario.

Still, it’s pretty.

This is a lovely yarn. The colours are awesome and the pattern it makes is pretty. Making a hat doesn’t take up a whole skein either (especially impressive since I have a large head).

As I mentioned in my last post it’s Cascade Color Duo. Colour? Color? You know what I mean.