New Year's Eve 2011

It’s New Year’s Eve!

Well 2011 isn’t ending so wonderfully.  Julio’s jaw abscess has returned, thankfully not too badly, and this week I’ve had a sore throat/earache thing going on which is leaving me totally exhausted.  Perhaps Julio and I are just having sympathy pangs for each other?  Animals are so in tuned to their caretakers and alpacas are no exception.

On New Year’s Eve I am always excited to look forward to the new beginnings of a new year.  I blogged about that last year.

So today I’m just reflecting about this past year.  2011 has been a wonderful year!  My big goal was to teach myself to process fleece myself and yup, I succeeded.  I learned how to sort the fleece [yes, yes, actually that was at the end of 2010], and how to wash it, flick it, comb it, card it, and my favorite ~ spin it!  I can spin on both a spindle and a spinning wheel!

Here’s my new spinning wheel, an Ashford Country Spinner:

And here are the first 2 skeins I spun ~ the blue one is Border LeicesterX  wool with a little alpaca, and the red one is Border LeicesterX wool with a little mohair:

I love, love, love, bulky, funky, art yarns and my heavy Turkish spindle and the Country Spinner are both perfect for this.  These bulky yarns are perfect for weaving on my frame looms. 

I hope you all had a wonderful 2011.

Here’s to 2012!  May you have an even more wonderful year!

Thank you all for reading our little blog!  It means a lot to us.

Bright Blessings to all of you!!

Mona   

Creating with Alpaca Fiber

We had a really, really nice summer here in our little corner of the US.  Most days I was able to enjoy utilizing my outside Fiber Studio.

 This is my outside Fiber Studio:

I, sitting in my backyard in my trusty little beach chair, with Stella snoozing nearby, have been spending the summer weaving, crocheting, spinning, felting, knitting, flicking, and washing and sorting fleece while watching the alpacas serenely graze.   Sometimes they stop to curiously watch the passing wildlife or roll in the sand pile.  They are very peaceful days filled with warm sunshine on my shoulders and soft grass under my feet.

The rains and snow and sunshine feed the soil which grows the grasses that in turn feed the alpacas who in turn grow the fleece that eventually can clothe people.  What a sensation to watch this transformation happening over a year’s time.  As the alpacas go about their daily job of, well, being alpacas, I stand back and just imagine what their fleeces turned into yarn will look like and what I can make with that yarn.  My alpacas' different colors along with their individual personalities inspire me.  Periodically I also stand in the barn and thank the alpacas for growing their lovely fleeces for me.  They stare at me blankly then sniff at me for a treat.

There is something magical, meditative perhaps, most definitely purposeful, to caring for animals daily and then creating something to wear from their fleece, with your own hands.  I spend a whole year watching the fleece grow as I care for the alpacas, by hand.  In the spring the alpacas are shorn, by hand, and the fleece is carefully separated and then sorted by grade, by hand.  Then the fleece is washed, by hand, dried in the sun, and by hand still, processed into a roving of sorts to be made into felt, by hand, or spun into yarn, by hand, and then crafted into a wearable, useable item, by hand.

Then you put this scarf or cowl or hat or shawl or sock or mitten or whatnot you've made yourself onto you and you just feel good.  It’s a warming and peaceful sensation like summer sunshine on your skin after a long and snowy winter.  I close my eyes and smile with gratitude for the alpaca that gave me this gift of soft, warm, comforting fleece to wear, who is living in my barn.   

There are no words to describe it.  Pure joy perhaps?  It’s similar to the feeling of anticipation you get when you plant your garden and watch it grow, then pick the veggies from your own garden, and finally sit down to eat and oooh, it tastes so good.

Knowing where your food ~ and what’s really in it ~ comes from is very important.  And joyful.  And knowing where your clothing ~ and the fiber in it ~ comes from is equally important.  And equally joyful.  And it’s from own backyard, made with my own hands and soul.

Handmade Love

A few days ago was Dan’s birthday so I baked him his favorite birthday cake:  chocolate cake with thick chocolate buttercream frosting.  Yes I made it from scratch!  Always!  There’s nothing like an imperfect looking, but fabulous tasting, homemade and handmade cake.  No two cakes I’ve ever made have come out looking the same.

Chocolate cake for Dan’s birthday is tradition for us.  Once, many, many years ago, I experimented a bit and made it a chocolate-raspberry cake with chocolate-raspberry frosting.  The cake part was easy enough; I just added some raspberry extract along with the vanilla.  For the frosting I melted chocolate-raspberry chips.  I’m sure there was plenty of melted butter too along with plenty of sugar.  I spread all this yummy goo over the cake and let it cool.

Well, melted chocolate chips with melted butter and sugar that cools turned into a frosting that hardened like fudge!  I’m pretty sure we had to cut this cake with a serrated bread knife to get through the frosting.  You could eat the cake and the frosting would just stay standing up intact on your plate like a taco shell.  So, we ate the frosting as if it were a piece of fudge.  To this day, it still is Dan’s favorite cake.

No, the alpacas won’t be eating chocolate cake.  They’re much too busy growing fabulous alpaca fiber for me!  This wonderful fiber will be made into yarns or roving or felt and then hand made into scarves or hats or rugs or something else wonderful.  One reason I love the small batches of mini-mill spun farm yarns is that every year the outcome is different and unique, complimentary to the changes in the alpacas’ fiber.  Each year’s harvest of fleece-turned-into-yarns is unique. 

When something is hand made it is always one of a kind.  You can follow the same pattern or instructions 10 times and all 10 times it will be a little different.  I love that!

While you’re making something handmade you can share your spirit of love and good wishes into the item you’re working on. 

A handmade item can be tweaked so that the intended recipient feels extra special. 

Handmade items are usually never perfect either, and these little flaws add to its uniqueness.  The uniqueness of something handmade is its beauty. 

Handmade is a simply joy of life.

Let’s share the handmade love!

First Farm Yarn Project

Back in October, I picked up our farm’s first yarns made from our alpacas’ fleeces.   I had decided then that my first project would be made with the Geldings’ yarn and that it would be something for Dan.  Julio and Guinness’ fleeces made a deep, dark brown yarn (nice manly color) in a rugged enough grade 3.  I love grade 3 yarn.  It’s very durable, but still soft enough to be worn close to the skin.

At first I was going to make Dan a hat.  Then my new 7 foot adjustable rectangle loom arrived from the Hillcreek Fiber Studio, so needless to say, I decided I’d make him a scarf instead.  I love scarves.

Lucky for me, Dan is agreeable to these things. LOL.

This nifty loom can be set up to make 21 different sized rectangles ~ oh the possibilities!  Right now it is set at about 11” by about 64”.  Once it’s off the loom it will ‘settle’ a bit, and again when I wash/full it, so it will still be a good manly sized scarf.  After setting up the loom on Sunday, I got about a third of the scarf done.



I’ve even managed to figure out Ravelry a bit more.   I will try to remember to post updates there too.  You can find me on Ravelry as:  harmonyhandwovens.