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Alpaca farming or ranching is a great lifestyle change from the hussle of the corporate world.
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FAF: I’m Back! I think?

Hi Fiber Arts Friday Fans.

So for the past month I haven’t posted.  Why?  Day job, nuff said! Darn thing gets in the way of me having fun ALL the time.  Well with colleges and schools starting up again my work load drops off.  Thank goodness too because I was starting to get burnt out.

Anyway I’ve been able to pick up the fiber fun recently and here’s what I’ve been up to.

First I’ve been busy braiding LOTS of ropes.  I’ve finished 7 ropes in the last week.  Here’s a sample of some of the brightest dyes I’ve ever done in my life.

Alpaca Lead Rope

Of course I couldn’t help by braid up a pair of split reins for myself.  My camera still hates the color purple but here’s as close as I could get, the purple is nice and bright and the yellow is more of a gold color.  Can’t wait to show them off at my next horse show!

Alpaca Split Reins

 

Next photo is fiber-n-fiber,  I was stuck at a headend one day and brought my knitting with me.  Thought the concept of alpaca fiber and fiber-optics was way too funny of a photo to pass up.

Fiber and Fiber

 

Lastly I’ve been teaching myself a new braid!  This little tiny test braid has 12 strands! My that’s a lot of untangling of dangly ends.

12 strand braid

Ok that’s it for now.  What have you guys been up to?

 

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FAF: TdF Week 1

Hello Fiber Arts Friday fans

Well if you know Wonder Why Gal then you know we’re doing a Tour de Fleece event this month.  Spinning fiber every day the Tour de France is cycling.

Here’s a snippit of what I’ve been working on

I painted up some new rovings to wok with since I have LOTS of white fiber laying around.  Spinning white is fun but oh gosh can it get boring.

I tried my hand at core spun yarn which seems to have turned out nicely.  Pretty bulky too.

The purple you see on the bobbin I spun up from raw un-carded alpaca locks that were died a light purple.  Very interesting to try and spin up uncarded fiber but I love the way the yarn turned out.  Lots of fluffies, big poof, thin spots, and oh so soft.  Made for a great art yarn.

Well that’s it in a nut shell.

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FAF: Secret Stash

Hi Fiber Arts Friday Fans,

I didn’t get much done this week fiber wise but I did find some goodies in the house as I was cleaning.

One is this lovely ball of handspun Merino/Tencel that I plied with gold thread and glass beads.  It called out “make me into a light shawl” so I am.  I’m kind of making up the pattern as I go so I’ll post it when I”m finished.. “probably 3 months from now.”

I’ve been skirting all the fiber we sheared this year and our lovely boy Alejandro gave us 12lbs of the fluffy stuff.  I just love this boy.  First alpaca I’ve ever had that spins up like merino with spring and loft in the yarn instead of being flat and boring.

I’ll leave you with our newest addition born last Sunday.  This is our Lazy Acres Phoenix cria.  I wasn’t expecting a brown boy at all!  Albina is white, Phoenix is light fawn and poof, we have brown, since I breed light alpacas he won’t be staying long so if anyone wants a brown boy by all means let me know!  $500 – unregistered $1,000 registered without breeding rights and $1,500 registered with breeding rights.

 

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WIP: Aqua Sparkles

Work in Progress Wednesday

I think every day is a WIP, heck I’m not convinced I ever am ever finished with anything.  It’s ok I like to be busy.

As I cleaned the house the other week I totally found this yarn in my stash.  It’s a merino/tencel blend I believe.  Shades of aqua and purple that I spun up with gold thread and some mini beads.   It was calling out to be made into something drappy so shawl it is!

I’m totally making up the pattern for the shawl so I’m going to have to write it down as I go.

 

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FAF: Down and Out

Hello Fiber Arts Friday Fans,

I didn’t get much done thanks to a kidney stone which is driving me totally nuts.  Stuck inside and with an infection thanks to the little bugger.  ERRR.

I did manage to dye up some alpaca and hand card it into mini roving bumps.  There’s about 2 oz here.  $6 if anyone wants it otherwise it’s going into my stash for Tour de Fleece.  Gosh that is coming up pretty quick too! Yikes!

The only other thing I managed to do was make about 60 ft of iCord and dye it up for another dog leash.  It’ll be the same Royal Blue and Tan as the leash I made a few weeks ago but the owner wants this one 8 ft long instead of 6 ft.

Well that’s it.  I’ll leave you with a little video of me hosing off the girls.  It’s been so darn hot lately.  The one with the bandana is Beanie, we’re still waiting for her to have her cria, she’s 10 days overdue now.