alpacas and quilt blocks

these are about the cutest little critters I've seen in a long time!

we went out to the Alpaca Round up yesterday afternoon

there were several alpaca ranchers there with their trailers all circled up with the pens set up at the back of each trailer and the little cuties in the pens

some of these shots are of alpacas that belong to a ranch called Two Toe (which is way cool since these little camilids are bi-peds) and the others belong to Black Forest Alpacas

alpacas are gentle, relatively small -- about 36 inches tall at the shoulder and weigh about 150 pounds when they are full grown -- think large tall dog! -- don't need a lot of space, live for about 20 years and are easy to take care of

if we were some place that allowed it, I might think about owning a couple of these beauties (they are herd animals and don't do well in singles -- they need a companion)

and why would someone want one?

this

fiber is good for you -- this kind of fiber is warm, soft, almost totally non-allergenic and comes in a couple dozen natural colors as well as taking a dye well

unlike sheep there is no lanolin in it, so you can basically sheer the alpaca, pick it, card it, spin it -- you don't have to scour it

it shares some characteristics with the polar bear in that the individual hairs are hollow -- making it very good as insulation

I'm thinking about making these two skeins of yarn into something for me -- perhaps a hat

the bottom skein is a very pale fawn color -- the top one is a two color ply -- one ply is a natural brown, the other is a white that the spinner dyed with koolaid and then plyed -- love it!

and there is this loveliness

this is the very first sheering off of a white cria (baby alpaca)

there are about 4 ounces here -- yes, it fills a whole plastic grocery bag!

I want to use this for doing some needle felting -- along with some of the Jacob Sheep fleece I have -- to make a hat

this is a piece of Raku pottery

shaped like an alpaca

the lady at Two Toes, where I got the fleece, also "dabbles" in pottery

heh, why is it that so many of us that like one art form also "dabble" in many others?

I think it's that wanting to know how it works thing -- and in my case -- the getting bored easy factor -- "ok, I know how to do that, let's learn something new!"
I got to this project sooner than I thought I would!

after our little excursion out to visit with the alpacas, I started working on setting together the top of the quilt

this is one of those times when I'm really happy to have a cutting table, my ironing board and the sewing machine all set up in the same room -- and that I actually do know some of those piecer's rules about careful cutting and seam size

I'm hoping to have all of this top stitched together today

one more mitten knit

one more mitten to go

must.knit.faster

right!