It was a long wait through some hot days but all of our alpacas are finally shorn! I mentioned a while back that I attended the shearing clinic up at Jay Ward’s place this spring and I got my chance to do some more hands on shearing on my own animals. I made the mistake of saving the last 3 animals for myself to shear. My legs were shaking from fatigue after wrestling all the alpacas before them as the header.
My lovely shearer Chris Hatch was so kind to coach me though and gave me great tips on how he runs his pattern and handles all the smaller cria and tui jobs. Thank you Chris and good luck in the alpaca shearing contest!
Of course after shearing you end up with bags upon bags of fiber everywhere! 12 animals time 3 bags each equals 36 bags stuffed with fluffy fiber. So, I’ve been working my way through all the bags skirting them on my new skirting table. Picking out VM as well as changes in color, guard hair, and consistency. Which means I’ve created even more bags of fiber! (FYI The red on the cria’s nose is loose minerals, she looks like Rudolf though)
The good news? Those folks that participated in our Raw Alpaca Fiber CSA… your fleeces have been skirted, packaged and shipped out already! You should get them soon! For those of you still wishing to take part in our CSA we do have full and half shares for Spinners and Yarn left! Check out our Etsy Store for details.
Oh yeah, last but not least progress has once again been made on the alpaca fan shawl. I’m on pattern row 29 of 30! I was worried that 30 pattern rows would not stretch out enough for my wingspan but I think I might be ok. We’ll see. Worst case I might add 2 more pattern rows.
So what have you Fiber Arts Friday folks been up to?
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