I’ve got it! It took me a week of annoying my husband stretching cord all throughout the house but I finally got the hand of making rope. The projects I have been working on this week are all for sale. See our Shop for what is available.
Next thing on the list is to dig through all my alpaca 2nd and 3rds in the basement and start spinning them into cord to be made into rope.
I’m so close to having the “ah ha” moment and it’s killing me. Check out these photos. Beautifully twisted rope made out of alpaca and I did a core color of Blue so I could see what that devil was up to. Sure enough that lousy core keeps getting caught up into my twist.
I think I need a lot more tension on my core to keep it from twisting up into the rope. Now the question is how to do that without an expensive rope machine or a staff of 3 men!
Since the weather has not been the greatest for riding my horses I find myself spending these winter months doing little projects while I dream of spring.
I might be in “English” leather country but I’m a cowgirl at heart and love the feel of a mecate or rope reins in my hands. The weight and lay of a good rope cannot be beat in my book and I decided to make one for myself.
Since I raise alpacas it seemed only fitting to make my new reins out of alpaca. Each cord I used to braid with is made up of 8 strands spun fiber (or yarn) this part requires a rope machine. Each cord is made up of 8 strands; 2 strands per hook; a total of 4 hooks. Using a rope machine, these strands are kept under even tension and twisted counter clockwise up to 15% shrinkage (differs for each type of fiber)) and then counter spun clockwise around one another creating a rope cord. I made 6 of these cords and a 7th to use as a core.
Since I’m still new to rope making I haven’t yet mastered the art of twisting cords around a core into rope. So I opted to do a 6 plait round braid around the core, back braided scissor snaps on each end and left the fringe on to a little character.
Hope you enjoy the photos. First 2 are of the reins the last one is of a lead rope I made to show my alpacas with. See our Shop for what is available.
Fiber Arts Friday as moved to it’s new home with WonderWhyGal! Check her out!
Video is from Back At The Ranch please give them a visit.
Shows great detail of spinning horse hair and twisting it into rope.
[flashvideo file=http://www.rochestertrailriders.com/wp-content/uploads/video/Horsehair_Mecate.flv /]
They call it the January Thaw. To me it’s a pain in the $(@*#. The snow pack by January has usually built up higher than the step up into the run-in sheds which means when a thaw comes all that snow melt runs right into the barn! It doesn’t help that our farm is also built on a slope and ALL the rain/snow melt from the pastures also makes its way right into the barn.
I’m sure the original farmer who built this barn put it in this location because of its close proximity to the artesian well. Great for hauling water, not so great for getting out of the way of run-off.
Future plans have us rebuilding the barn in a new location but until then it is a constant battle with Mother Nature. With the heavy rain we got this weekend on a frozen ground I knew I’d be in trouble. My only defense against the onslot of water, a spade. I spend about 15 minutes of my AM/PM chores digging trenches to control the flow of water away from the barn. Labor intensive but it works!
Hmm, the Mega Millions is at 121M. Maybe I should buy a ticket and dream of a new barn and landscaping.
Finally the weekend! I was so excited about being able to sleep in to 7am on Saturday morning. The week was busy with long days and short nights and all I wanted was to catch up on some sleep.
All that hope turned to panic with M. jabbing me in the side at 5:15am Saturday morning. “Do you hear that?” he said. The sound was unmistakable, coyotes. Usually we hear them far off in the distance but they sounded like they were right out our window.
I couldn’t get the lights, clothes, shoes on fast enough. My blood was boiling. If they sounded that close I just came to the immediate concussion that they had gotten into the alpaca paddock.
Armed with nothing but flashlights we bolted out the front door which thankfully was enough to scare off the coyotes. To my relief all alpacas and horses were accounted for and unharmed. Needless to say with that much adrenaline running through my system there was no going back to bed. *sigh*
Instead I decided that putting a full effort into researching livestock guard dogs(LGD) was a better use of my time. Looks like I have a lot of reading and talking to breeders to do before I settle on which one would be right for our farm. I’ll keep you updated in future posts of our LGD research, purchase and integration.
