Blended Yarn

Here is the grey shetland/alpaca blend that I blogged about earlier. It turned out nice and soft.

This is the fawn alpaca roving that I blogged about here http://gypsyspinner.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-alpaca-roving-and-more.html

It is beautifully soft but quite short stapled. I changed to a smaller whorl on my Rose and am spinning it from the fold. There is alot of twist in the single but it was necessary to keep it together. It will be a 3 ply when it is all finished.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Lots of Cheer

My livingroom.

Spicey waiting for Santa to come.

Deer from my Dad's livingroom window.

Stepmom,moi,DH and son Mirek on the right.

Stepmom, moi, Dad and my son Mirek.

Pure Merino Fleeces

My birthday is coming up (January 2nd). It always signals the end of the holidays for me. I scored 4 pure merino fleeces from here http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturalcolored/3118393157/. Lucky me because there was someone else waiting in line if I didn't want it. Sorry to whoever you are. I can't wait to see them! I have been drooling over every single fleece they have for sale. There is one cream coloured fleece....a light grey fleece...a moorit fleece and a dark brown fleece. Eighteen lbs total for the four fleeces. I know merino loses alot of weight with washing. Won't get these till after the New Year tho. So Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy New Year to everyone! Be safe and pls don't drink and drive.

Fibre Blending

Fawn suri and lovely fawn huacaya. Blending on the handcards but spinning this with the fibres laying parallel.

Grey shetland from http://spinknitandlife.blogspot.com/. Phyllis says it's from a local Tennessee farm. Soft and great colour but a little neppy so I ran it thru the mini-combs. Combed is on the right.

Grey shetland blended with some equally soft grey alpaca. Made this into carded rolags and drafted them into roving.

Finished puffs of grey shetland/alpaca. Eighty-eight grams in total.

In anticipation of my son staying with us for Christmas and taking over my fibre room (also known as spare bedroom)....I have been busily prepping some fibre to spin over the holidays. I'm also rushing to get several pairs of socks knit!

My Weekend

Estonian mittens finally finished. Done in Elann Alpaca/Wool/Cashmere and Alpaca/Silk.

My yearly pierogi quota for my son Mirek. His Babcia taught me how to make them many years ago but now I add jalepeno to give them more zip!

This is all the snow we woke up to on Sunday. Freezing cold (-22 celcius) , howling winds and drifting snow. The more we shovelled the driveway, the more snow blew back into our faces.

This is where my little Spice girl likes to spend her winters :)

Getting Things Ready.........

Our fireplace mantel is all decorated. It's unfortunate that we can't have a tree but Mokka (my big white guy) is very inquisitive and would think it's a toy for him to play with. Not a good or safe situation.

Some lovely soft golden brown suri , drying over the heating register. I had a couple of suri fleeces that hadn't been washed yet and I wanted to spin suri yarn for one of my Alpaca Ontario handspin/handknit entries. I hope I can do this fleece justice! More on that later.

More freshly washed yarns. These are 2 ply heavy sportweight I'd say. All handcombed. The fleece is a corrieXshetland. The small black and white skein is leftovers from the black corriedale and the white that were plyed together.