My son has been busy knitting on his flatbed knitting machine. He is having so much fun creating these hats from his fingering alpaca yarn!
I love fall (except that it means winter is coming) for all the colors of the trees. These are two of the trees on my son’s farm. Maples, so pretty. I took these a couple of weeks ago, the leaves have all fallen now. So after Christmas I will be going, “Is it Spring yet?”
This was the Halloween celebration at the farm this past Saturday :). The first two pictures are some of his decorations, then there are several pictures of the alpacas wearing costumes, lol, some of them had trouble leaving them on! You can see the male behind the fence with a bow tie and little Apollo also has a tie on, some of the females were wearing hats. Libby the llama said, nope! They will be decked out at Christmas too :).
The next to the last picture is some sport weight hand spun I turned into a hat for my friend that gave me the smaller wheel that I use at the farm during alpaca days to show spinning to the people who come out to enjoy the alpacas as a thank you. It’s a paid for pattern, Husband Request Hat on Ravelry. I changed it a little so I made it a little longer and knit 4 purl 2 so it’s a little more stretchy, but I wasn’t sure of his head measurements and I am not a fan of the hats that fit skin tight so I thought this was the best way to go. Hope it fits him :P.
The last picture is the new hat I’m working on with the Hats for Warmth project I work on for our local homeless shelter. This will be hat number 5 this year, one more after this and I will send them off to the shelter. I am using a #6 16″ circular needle and I Love This Yarn in the print color #red tweed. It’s not really a tweed, it’s a darker red with black speckles on it, LOL, but it is pretty. I am enjoying knitting it.
We had a birth this morning! A little boy (we were hoping for a little girl) but he is so cute and will be a rose grey like his mom, he’s so little! My son is watching to make sure he could latch on to nurse and the little one did, the colostrum is important. He will be weighed this evening and they will pick out a name for him so he can be registered. I told my son he should name the little one Ozzy Osborn, but he said, he doesn’t look like an Ozzy, and I thought, what does an Ozzy alpaca look like? LOL. Anyway a name will be forthcoming. He’s doing well so far, he was about an hr old in the right bottom picture. My son put one of his whippet’s sweaters on him because it started raining, so he wouldn’t get cold. The mom wasn’t real happy but she allowed it.
This was days 11, 12 and 13. the middle picture is day 13 where I spun the last of the roving for this fiber and also the two bobbins or singles are finished. Tomorrow I will ply these two singles together to get a 2 ply yarn :), and wash it and let it dry, and I will begin on Sunday with my next spin.
Picture #1 (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them), I put my bulky flyer and bobbin on my Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel so I can make sure the bobbin doesn’t run out of space as I ply these 2 bobbins of singles. You can see the difference of the bulky bobbin in the first picture against the regular size bobbins in the last picture. If you look hard you can also see the flyer difference in the 1st picture versus the 2nd picture. My regular bobbins in the last picture are different weights, two of them are 57 grams, and one is 53 grams, I use a magic marker and put the weight of each bobbin on the end. I weigh them after spinning and subtract the weight of the bobbin to get the spun singles weight. The fiber on one weighed 48 grams and the other weighed 49 grams. Pretty close. If I have left over singles on one, which I imagine I will, I will Navajo ply it (aka Andean plying) or practice chain plying and have a tiny skein to remember my spin :). I will put a picture up of my finished skein on Tuesday, so you don’t miss my Monday Funny post :P. I will be gifting this skien to my ophthalmologist (eye doctor) on Wednesday.
Yesterday was a beautiful day in the 70’s with very little humidity. Today was in the low 80’s but the dew pt was 71% and humidity 82% so it was a little muggy feeling. We have thunder storms coming in tomorrow through next Wed. Tuesday through Thursday will be in the lower 90’s, not sure how much the rain will affect the “feels like” temps, but I’m sure it will not be fun!
Stay safe and enjoy your gardening and/or crafting out there!
Oh dear, I watch shark week to remember why I don’t swim in the ocean, now I have one more reason to not swim in the ocean, salt water crocs in the water at the beaches where it’s warm enough for them to survive, sigh. This one thinks he’s hidden in a wave, sorry dude that’s a fail, lol.
Bought a bag of barbecue chips (Old Dutch brand) and this is one I found in the bag. Love the little reminders we sometimes get at odd times and in strange ways. We are never forgotten.
My daughter likes to give me living flowers for Mother’s Day. Last year it was the beautiful braided Hibiscus Tree, and this year it’s a beautiful aqua orchid. I’ve never seen one this color before, I love it!!! She also gave me a gift card :). Children are a blessing.
As promised the blossom of the Agaparthus plant. It’s a little puny but probably because the plant is a little bit puny too :P. But the color is beautiful :). The next one is a flowering Magnolia tree. I love those, they are so pretty!
It’s officially Spring when I see the first Robin! Two pictures because the first one that shows his red breast was blurry :(, and the 2nd picture was just his back, but there we go!! I had to pull over on the side of the road or into a driveway to get these pictures, hehe. Fortunately there were not any cars on the road at the time. The last several years I could not catch the first Robins returning for Spring so I was so excited to get them this year!!!
LDSVenus-knits 