Alpaca

I spun this alpaca-camel-silk yarn last year. For a long time I didn't know what to make from it, then I thought a very simple pattern would suit the yarn best. The result pleases me very much. It's a strong, soft, floating fabric, lays steady on my shoulders. Anna, a spinner from Sweden, sent me the alpaca for no reason at all. She had washed the raw fibers keeping the fibers in order, so I combed them and spun worsted. I bought a baby camel/silk top from Wingham Wool Work for the second thread. The pattern is Melon Stitch from Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today.

Swap yarns

I like swaps, you never know what your partner will send you. Two days ago I spun two singles and yesterday I plied, skeined and washed the yarn. I'm so pleased with this yarn! I spun the hand dizzed tops with merino, alpaca and silk uneven, and the commercial merino top even, and got a yarn with character and structure.

The merino-alpaca-silk tops to the left, sorry I don't have a better picture

Merino top

Singles

The finished yarn shows the different fibers in a nice way

I also spun the pink Shetland-Merino-Nylon batt in the photo above:

Now I'm thinking of what to spin to ply it with. Gray would be nice, but I can also imagine other pink shades in a 3-ply and another gray 3-ply for a warm Fair Isle hat.

The swans have been grazing in the fields for a couple of weeks. Soon they will be gone.

In the garden the plants show colors you didn't know they had:

This is a cactus I got from a friend a couple of years ago. She sent it to me in a milk package, I put it in a pot, it grew roots and started growing bigger and bigger. Last summer it was hanging in a rowan for a couple of months. A few weeks ago I got the sad news that my friend had passed away. I call my cactus "Marie" in remembrance of her. Marie has four flowers now.

Alpacka

English below

Medan jag väntar på mina nya Bosworthsländor, spinner jag finsk alpacka på min Kromski Symphony, som jag kallar Almamater. Jag köpte alpacka i naturvitt och olika bruna nyanser från Lakeuden Alpakat. Jag blandade alpackan med brun lantrasull från Villa Laurila, och med vit finull från Gammeldags i Sverige. Den vita alpackan fick lite silke inkardad också. Min gamla elkardmaskin rosslar lite, men kardar fortfarande bra. Jag kardade varje flor 4-5 gånger, fast 6 skulle ha varit bättre. Jag börjar inte karda på nytt, nej. Visst ser de vita battarna ljuvliga ut?

Alpacka-ullblandningen är lätt att spinna, men smutsig. Jag borde ha tvättat, ja, ja, ja, men lyckligtvis köpte jag tvättad finull. Tvättade fibrer är så mycket lättare att jobba med. Jag kan föreställa mig hur lätt det här hade varit om alpackan runnit mellan fingrarna, som ren, fin alpacka gör. Det verkar som om alpackorna kommit för att stanna i Finland. Den alpacka de producerar varierar liksom i övriga världen. Det är en fiber jag nog kommer att jobba mera med.

Det blir tretrådigt garn, som ska bli en tröja åt min man. Marianne Isagers Inca Knits finns i bakhuvudet.

English: While I'm waiting for my new bossies, I spin Finnish alpaca blended with Finnwool and Swedish Finewool on my Kromski Symphony called Almamater. The alpaca is in different brown shades, and offwhite. I added some white silk to the white alpaca-finewool. I carded each batt 4-5 times on my electric drumcarder. A 6th would have been better but I won't start the carding all over. I didn't wash the fibers, which I should have, yes, yes and yes, luckily I bought the finewool scoured. But the batts are still easy to spin. I'm spinning a 3-ply yarn for a hubbysweater. Marianne Isager's Inca Knits is working in my head while I spin.