New Cria on the Farm!!!

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The mom is named Dori. She’s a first time mom and had this beautiful 18 lb cria, who was born today at 12:30pm. No name yet, but her dad is Charlie Brown, hehe, he’s the same color brown as this little one is, but she is his first daughter, he has thrown 3 males (also his color). Tim and Ev were very happy to have a little female this time. :). The cria that was born in May was a male they named Oreo because he was black with a white face. Boots (Oreo’s mom, is a black female with with white on the lower part of her front legs, thus her name lol) was brought into the herd last year and was already pregnant (we didn’t know) so we don’t know who the father was. All the males and females on that farm were registered and there’s no genetics to our herd, so having a new black male alpaca is a plus :). Only Izabella is left to have her cria but she’s not due until September, bless her heart having to carry through the hot summer.

I’ve been using my wool combs on the 2nds from Leah (a year old cria). This fleece is soooo soft, but dirty and the combs are doing a good job helping to take out the hay pieces. I’m washing after combing instead of before because her fiber is so soft that the hay just sticks to it and I figured that washing it first would just dig it deeper in. I’ll show a picture when I get enough to card into a batt. It’s a slow process but worth it to save this luxury fiber. 🙂

New Tour de Fleece Tee Added

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

I got this one from Etsy because I wanted a new one to wear this year, it is my 4th one and I liked having the year on it. Fiber Love Diary said she will have a tee this year, so I will buy one of hers, when I get paid next month, so I get two this year. I wanted to make sure I had one to start the Tour de Fleece with. The Tour de France is from July 5th through July 27th, so I will get to wear 2 different tee’s this year!!

Yarn Acquired!

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

Well I might have accidentally ordered a skein of yarn from an Indy (spelling?) dyer on YouTube that I follow, Awenydd Yarn and Fiber, I linked her shop, you can look for her on YouTube under that name. She does a Monday podcast reworking some of her older color ways while you watch her dye, a Wednesday podcast while you watch her dye from a random selection of colors of dyes from a random generator, it’s fun, and on Fridays she talks about her works in progress etc. This was one of her reworks of an older color way, she did last week, to jazz it up a bit. I fell in love with it, I had enough extra money and ordered it. She got it right out to me and she sent me that beautiful crystal in a heart cage progress keeper as a thank you, so pretty. I’m thinking about asking her to dye up a skein of just the blue color as a tonal next month. I thought it would make a nice shawl knitting 6 rows of the blue and 3 or of the American Woman rows throughout the shawl. What do you think? I think the blue would give it some balance and depth as a shawl, beginning and ending with the blue, and the brighter colors would make it pop a bit adding excitement and the blue in the brighter colors would pull the two together :). If I was a sock knitter I would just knit socks for July, but I’m not, so there’s that :P. She has knit samples with the skeins so you can see what the yarn works up as.

Hoping everyone is fine and not suffering with the heat. We are having thunderstorms today and tomorrow, and will be in the mid 90’s on Saturday, Sunday and next Monday, with sweltering humidity, which they said would make it feel like the low 100’s, :(. This is our late July and August weather, way too soon!!! Thank goodness for air conditioning!!!

Monday Funny???

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

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.

Spinning Purchase and Knitting Update

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

Ok, I hemmed and hawed and decided to buy a set of wool combs from Bam Fiber Works . I got the double row, fine wool combs with a magnetic comb cover. LOL so glad I got those covers, these things look like weapons!!! It came with a bottom that you can clamp to a table and had a nice set up to hold the comb still while you use the other comb to comb through the fiber and align it and and clean it from short cuts and left over vm. I will be washing some of the 2nd cuts from the cria (baby alpaca) fiber I got so I can try it out. Gotta be careful using those, they can do some damage!! These combs are very nice, I will enjoy learning to use them (carefully!!)

On my Look for Happiness Blanket I have the bottom border and 20 patterns done (4 rows to a pattern). This is the medium size and I need to do about 49 total patterns before doing the top border. So almost halfway done. If it doesn’t look like yarn chicken, I might add an extra pattern or so before the doing the top border. I am almost done with the 2nd skein and I have 4 more, so I might be able to make it a little longer, I’ll see where it is when I finish the 3rd skein. I’m hoping to be further along before Tour de Fleece starts on July 5th when the Tour de France begins. We spin on our spinning wheels on the days that the bicyclists ride and have two rest days when they do. We don’t normally spin all day, just however much time we have decided to spin, I’ll probably spin 20 to 30 min a day, it ends on July 27th. Will need to buy a new Tour de Fleece tee shirt this year :).

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer!

Memorial Day 2025

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

I give special reverence to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, for what they loved, their families and a free and safe country. May we honor them and always remember that freedom has a price, and keep this country free and safe in their honor for the families of all those who died to protect us all. Prayers said for their families.