Slipper Socks

My most recent project is a pair of slipper socks. I spun the yarn, and knit these myself.

I knit the two slipper socks (a pair) at the same time. This way I didn't have to worry if they are the same size or not, they have the exact same number of stitches and rows. Here they are in process (I finished one row on one of the slippers and was about to start that row on the 2nd slipper that is why they are two needles):



I started out with two balls of yarn, one for each slipper so I could knit them at the same time. I knew when I made the skeins that one was a bit longer than the other. As could be predicted, one ball ran out. What I did was use the other end of the ball still left, and knit them both from the same ball:



Still there were two slippers on there:



I like this slipper pattern, but it's a bit different than the typical. You knit this one across (not starting at the top or toe, but at the heel going to the toe). When it's done, you end at the toe, where you pull the yarn through the end to make the pointed toe.

Needle with yarn going through the end stitches:



The yarn goes through these stitches:



It gets pulled tight, creating the toe area:



Then the slipper is made by sewing up the front of it (toe to ankle):



And a seam is sewn along the heel:



A pair is created:



Here I am wearing them:



The top can also be folded over:

Health

I mentioned a few blog posts back that I have been sick. It's a long story, but the end diagnosis: Shingles. While the rash is healing now, I do have some continue nerve pain, but the worst for me has been the extreme fatigue. There were a few days in there, I couldn't even get out of bed. While I'm doing better, I am no where near 100% yet. It's going to take some time and a lot more rest.

I have read that shingles is most often an ailment older people get, or people with a compromised immunity, and people under great stress. Now, I've advocated that a benefit of owning alpacas is the tranquility I feel when out in the pastures with them. I've mentioned the incredible benefits of Poop Therapy. I know when I spin yarn, there is a sense of peace that only yarn spinning can give someone. There is an incredible sense of accomplishment at the completion of a knit product. In addition, there is the joy and excitement of having one of your own cria do well in the show ring. I've stated that alpaca farming is Fuel for my Soul. These are the wonderful things of alpaca ownership. I stand behind these claims, I won't take back any of what I've said. Instead I will say this, I am scared to think what would have happened to me if I didn't have all these in my life. Life is hard and we all have stress, but I am thankful to my alpacas for the balance they give me. If anything, I might need to work on making more time for standing in the pasture of tranquility, to take advantage of poop therapy, and yarn spinning.

Not that everything about alpaca farming is roses. There are challenges. We've had death on our farm (one alpaca, several cats and this year having to put down our beloved family dog). We've had shows where our animals did not do as well as we hoped. We've had alpacas get sick and injured. We've had to make difficult financial choices. These are natural stresses. Though when thinking about it, none of these are my stress right now. We are blessed with healthy alpacas, and now that we are in our fourth year of alpaca farming, the farm is running smoothly. But, as I've said, life can be stressful and my whole life isn't alpaca farming. Realizing I had Shingles has reminded me that I need to slow down, rest, and not let life over take me. I need to take time to smell the roses.... or more to point, spin the fiber :)

Fiber Fiesta results ~ First Place, Judges Choice!!!

I am excited to say the results for the Fiber Fiesta have now been posted.

Back in September we mailed in our entries (blog post about that here). We entered two males in the 2 ounce fiber competition: Sancha's White Lightning and SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations. And I entered two home spun skeins in the home spun competition.

Greyt received a 2nd place in his class. And, I am so thrilled to report that Lightning's fiber received:

1st & Highest in Color Group & Best Crimp

This comes after Lightning received a first in the fiber spin off at Nationals this year. I have always said Lightning's fiber is incredible. He is the male to go to for that fiber boost.

I entered two skeins in the home spun yarn competition because I was curious to have feedback on my yarn spinning abilities. I have never entered any of my home spun yarn in a competition before and was anxious to hear how it would stack up.

I sent in a skein from Cafe. That skein received a 2nd place ribbon. I also sent in a skein from SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations, which received:

1st and judges choice!!!

Here I had been so worried my home spun yarn would not stack up in a competition. These fears were not true at all.

10 for 2010

I loved my blog post at the end of 2009, reflecting on that year of alpaca farming. It's amazing what changes in one year's time.

A lot has happened in 2010. I did my best in this post to link to blog posts about each topic for reference. Though many things had more than one blog post, so of course there is so much more to the posts from 2010. This year I made a distinct effort to blog more frequently, and given the number of posts I had in 2010 (296 posts), it appears my plan worked.

Here is my top 10 things that took place on our farm this past year.

1. The top award goes to our own OHVNA Pocahontas winning reserve color champion at the Best of the Midwest Show in March of 2010. Our goal is to breed animals that can win in the show ring, and she is exactly what we wanted. Blog post about that is here.





2. We participated in our first Alpaca Auction. Link to blog post about that here. This led to the sale of two of our girls, Lily and Shelby.

3. As with every year, this year we built an additional shelter (blog post here and here). After doing this a few times prior, we've learned what we like most about shelters, and I think this one is by far our favorite design (this picture was taken before trim was put on and it was painted):





We also added on with the purchase of a hay tent to hold all the hay (link to blog post here. We had been storing hay in our garage, taking away valuable space.



inside the hay tent:



4. We attended the National Alpaca Show, our first time at such a big show. I have many blog posts about that, I'll link to this one, but there are many others to cover this big event (look through May 2010 on my blog).

5. This year marked the end to an era (link goes to blog post). We started our farm in 2007, so in 2008 the first cria were born on our farm. As they turned 2 years old in 2010, they came to the end of their show career. Tehya is the only one of our 2008 cria who is still on our farm. Tehya had an impressive show career and we are excited to see what cria she produces this coming spring. There are too many posts about Tehya's show career for me to link to (I did link one above).

6. For the first time, this year, 2010, we had more male cria born than female. For two years straight we had 1 boy and 2 girls born each year. This past year we had 3 boys and 1 girl.

Smokey's Twilight was the only girl born on our farm in 2010. Her birth post is here.





Our Copper Canyon was born while we were at the National Show (blog post here). We met him here:



OHVNA Chaska was born in July 2010. I wrote about his birth here.



OHVNA Challenger was the last cria born on our farm in 2010. His birth day is posted here.



Looking at these newborn cria pictures, it's neat to see how much they have changed since they were born. They grow up so fast!

7. We waited over 374 days for the birth of a cria!!!! I know I put Twilight in #6, but really waiting that long deserves a second mention. It was a long long wait. Typical gestation is 335 to 350 days. The longest we had waited before was under 360 days, so going that additional two weeks felt like an eternity. Just as I gave up on that cria being born, she appeared.

8. We improved our fiber production line by adding a fiber tumbler.



It took some time for me to get used to using the tumbler, but now that I've adjusted, I find it cleans the fiber better than my previous method.

9. This past year through trades we added some animals to our herd. First the arrival of Rose and Snickers, then the addition of Lucy, Latte and Ginger.

Enlightenments Rocky Rose is a favorite on our farm (blog post here):



Rose along with her mom, Snickers (Persnickety Miss)



RPA Lucy:



Straightfork Vanilla Latte and her cria, Eclipse's Ginger Ale:




There was also the return of Tucker! He came home in October.




10. This is certainly not the least important, but it also isn't directly related to our farm. This past year, 2010, we had to put our down our house dog, Dottie (link to blog post about her). Dottie was old and no longer had quality of life. But given her role as beloved family member, she is greatly missed (link to poem about her). I still wake up every night and look for her next to my bed. She was the best dog ever.



I also wanted to put an honorable mention to the post about alpaca farming being Fuel for the Soul. I think about that topic frequently, and love the rejuvenation that I get from these creatures. There are benefits to alpaca farming that goes way beyond the luxurious fiber and cute cria.

Wet, soggy mess

You may have noticed less than usual blog posts from me this past week. I've been sick (I'll post about this in a future post), and just as I was no longer contagious, I spent a few days visiting my parents and siblings in the Chicago area. While I like to believe I hold my own in the country, it is true that many of my growing up years I lived in the suburbs of Chicago (I moved there when I was 11 years old, and only left when I went to college, that's what brought me to Michigan). Every time we make this trip, I'm reminded in another way how country my kids are. This trip it was a comment by Zack: we were going out for lunch and Zack said "oh, are we going to town?" People in the suburbs don't talk that way :) It's a good cultural experience for my kids, given this is the only place they have lived, it's good sometimes to get off the farm.

We woke up this morning to the sound of rain, lots of heavy rain. I knew if it was raining in Chicago, that rain was headed to our home in Michigan. When I called home to check on how J and the farm were fairing, J reported that most of the snow was gone from all the rain that had fallen here.

I know not too many people unpack their car after a trip and then rush out to scoop alpaca poop, but that is exactly what I did. I came home to a terrible wet mess of fog, mud and huge poop piles. The girls were also waiting their grain feeding:



In the distance the fog was setting over the pastures:



Twilight as a wet mess:



and Challenger was quite the wet mess too:



My usual routine with cleaning the pastures of alpaca poop is to scoop the girl's poop daily. I find if I do it everyday, then it's about 3/4 of a wheel barrow full. If I wait 2 days or more, then I have to make more than one trip with the wheel barrow. I prefer one trip, a quick chore each day. However, in the winter, when it's below freezing, often much of the poop is frozen to the ground. In years past I would dig it up, scrap it up, spending lots of time hacking away at the frozen pieces. Last year I decided that was a waste of time, and instead only scooped up what wasn't stuck and frozen. It did mean that when a thaw came, I would be really busy with all the piles that finally unfroze. But, overall this method seemed to work best. So, here I was, just home from a trip with thawed out poop piles in a muddy foggy pasture.

I ended up cleaning out 4 wheelbarrow's full of alpaca poop:



It was a wet muddy mess. But the temperatures are supposed to fall again and freezing temps will be here soon. I didn't want all these piles to re-freeze, I wanted to scoop them up quick while I still could.

Tucker's Fiber

One of our favorite males, Our Peruvian Tucker:



Last week I spun up the last of Tucker's fiber. Tucker was not on our farm for most of 2010, including shearing time, so we did not have any of his 2010 fiber. (He was at a farm in Ohio, we swapped males for almost a year). I was still working through his 2009 blanket. I love Tucker's fiber. It's a wonderful light silver grey color. It has a nice crimp that I find easy to spin. And his fiber does not hold onto debri like some of our animals blankets do.

Spinning yarn:





Two strands ready for plying:



Washing yarn:



Ball of yarn:



Knitting in process:



I am sad to be out of Tucker's blanket fiber. It makes me eager for our 2011 shearing, just to get more. In the mean time, I have plenty of other blankets to work through.

Infant Hat

J knit up this cute infant hat.



It is made out of yarn I spun up from Tehya's fiber.

Raw fiber:



I love how Tehya's fading fawn color creates a variated yarn (pictures do not do justice the true variation in color, this is something that is best seen in person).



Remember a few posts back I spoke about plying the remaining of one strand of Tehya's yarn with a left over strand from Cafe - that multi-color plyed yarn is what made the accent yarn for this hat.



I love having the multi-color two plyed yarn! I think it really makes a knit product pop. I've started purposely making one longer strand so that I have them around to ply with a different color.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone is having a very merry day.

While I have been busy with Christmas chaos at our house, I always find some down time once everyone is settled into using (playing with) their new presents. Ahh the quiet after the chaos.

I thought I'd put up pictures of many of the alpaca product presents we have given away this year. I took these pictures after we already gave away one of the presents, and before the last two scarves were made. It's really hard to capture the knit products in a picture. To get their true beauty, one must see and touch and feel these items. But, since this is on-line, pictures are the best I can do.

Here is the array of scarves in various colors and styles. The colors include rose grey, fawn, black, another rose grey, and fading fawn




First is a rose grey male muffler, made out of fiber from our own Greyt Exxpectations. This scarf pattern is wider and shorter, giving it a more masculine look.



The next one was made from fiber off of Cafe, who is no longer on our farm, but resides on a farm nearby.



Rosco provided the true black fiber for the lush black scarf. It's hard to see in the picture that the scarf is a very lacy pattern.



The rose grey scarf also came from fiber off of Greyt Exxpectations.



The last one was made from fiber off of Tehya. Tehya is a beautiful fading fawn, which spins into a wonderful variated yarn.