Alpaca's squeak

Contest...I still don't have my "prize." I don't know if I am being impatient or if they are sort of slow. I emailed yesterday.

Update: I'm kind of slow. I finally puzzled out the confirmation number out of 3 on the receipt, and wha-la...progress of transaction. They mailed it the day after I ordered it. So, busy weekend, I checked today at lunch and poof there it was. See what happens when I don't stalk my mailbox? So, this is the prize. Lovely, periwinkle.

So lovely, that I had to acquire a set for myself as well as the orchid colorway. Yipee. Maybe I should start counting sock yarn as stash?

All I know is this, after I finished organizing my stash, I ended up having more room in my stash boxes. So that means I need to fill those spaces right?

I think there was a time when I thought that it would be cool to have a few sheep or alpaca or other fleece producing animals. However, this has sort of changed. I'm sort of afraid of animals really, unless they are cats or fish. Dogs, I tolerate. Sheep, while cute, especially when made into a stuffed animal, are a little odd looking to me and a friend told me, full of ticks. Alpaca's...well they make this really weird screaming noise that kind of freaks me out a little.

Am I a bad knitter/spinner? I would like my fleece processed and colored and ready to go, as though it was never on the animal. Just like my chicken comes in cellophane, all clean and plucked...so should wool.

Speaking of wool. The Alpaca thing, I made it, on Sunday no less, but Saturday I had an ass ton of things to get done (help build a fence, pick child up from other parent's house, take child to birthday party, take child back to other parent's house, go home need shower from fence building, go to meet D, go to bar and listen to bands.) So, Sunday, I set my alarm, and I made it there right at 10 am. I didn't remember my camera. It is my talent to always forget 1 thing, on Sunday, it was the camera.

It's a little show. There were a few vendors. The vendors downstairs had a handful of fleece, all alpaca, all 100% worsted weight alpaca, seemingly handspun, some small skeins of milled. I wandered upstairs to the "fiber arts" area. I expected crafts however, to my glee, I found more vendors. The first one I run into, selling plain roving, and colored roving to needlefelt. Rats. I didn't want to purchase just plain ol' roving. What's the fun in that unless you're going to dye it. Sure, I guess the practice is good. The next one was the same as well, and then there were a few people to my delight, spinning. Roving, yay.

I found this at the Eye Dazzler Alpacas. It's ready to go and it mixed with silk. I bought 2, they were only 1 oz. sizes. They had red, yellow, purple, and a brown/black. The purple and the yellow were great, but I took home the purple. They teach classes at this farm, which is approximately 2 hours from Lone Tree, CO. They offer natural dye classes as well as acid dye classes, but not until next fall or spring, which is okay. All sorts of exciting. I'm hoping that perhaps I can take a class or set something up perhaps. They were very friendly and at this booth I learned how to spin and ply at the same time from a drop spindle.

This selection I found at the next place. I picked up some alpaca roving as well as merino. They had silk hankies which were beautiful, but I just didn't think I wanted to bother with them at this point. I also found this sport weight red/black yarn, socks of course, it's not superwash, but it's a really great color. Does anyone know, if you knit socks out of yarns that are not superwash can you still wash them in a cold water wash in the washing machine. I don't mind hand washing socks. Just curious. I keep pondering the socks I think I want to make for D, although I think he'd like slippers better, and I keep thinking that superwash is a good thing.

Speaking of socks...I'm making socks. Out of real sock yarn (yes, I make socks out of worsted weight acrylic). It's Noro sock yarn. I figured since I haven't really used super squooshy sock yarn to knit with yet and only the scratchy sort of Fortissma sock yarn, that Noro would be a good start. Besides I had 2 of this colorway in my stash, how did that happen? The reviews that I have heard from fellow sock knitters is, it's like knitting with twine. Hmm. Sounds great. I'm actually liking my twine though. I like Noro so much anyway. I'm enjoying the weird slubs and picking out my little bits of vegetation. Odd little knitter I am.

I only frogged the toe 2 times before I decided that the toe up K1, M1 was leaving a sort of little hole by the toe increase that I didn't care for. I only frogged once more after that realizing that I should at least sort of use a pattern in order to knit this in a sock that might fit me. D pointed out that my children have smaller feet than me and if the sock is too small I can just give it to them, practice practice.

Practice? What? It's not going to be perfect on the first try? I can't have that. My sense of Borg perfection cannot assimilate. Okay, so I didn't frog it a 4th time. It's going well so far, except for work and life getting in the way of my knitting time. I think it needs a pattern in it, however I want to practice the gusset heel instead of the short row heel. The short row heel is why I don't like to knit toe up, but the toe up concept makes me keep wanting to try.