I am face-to-face with a mountain of natural colors , just off the line, washed & hung-dried skeins of handspun alpaca, spun up from raw loose alpaca locks I have acquired from three different friends of mine who raise alpacas . Three !
This Wind-Off launches the beginning of knitting for the second April Birthday Project , which is the Andean chullo / Himalayan sherpa hat, and for which last week I began spinning my alpaca stash . My brother loves these hats, has a bit of a collection , and for whom I intend to take the design for a twist of a sort, sherpa chullo and which I want to be a pleasant mix borrowing design from Andean, Himalayan, and Fair Isle , this project calls for alpaca, handspun, in order to give it the touch of stylish authenticity.
I thought alpaca would be the perfect fiber.
During the spinning of the alpaca, a couple things developed.
One, I really enjoy spinning alpaca, whether raw and weedy or in fine roving. I have in fact, dyed some and am going to spin up a couple of skeins for the mother of Nora , who has delightedly become a knitter !
Alright, item number two. An amazing thing happened, similarly to when I posted ” What do I have in common with these women? ” a short time ago, marvelling in the acquired skill of double tasking while knitting, well, I have found that I can double task while spinning too ! Even more difficult. The yarn turned out rather more “rustic” than if I were watching with hawk eyes, all the fibers going into the draft, but no, I wanted to read up on my new edition of Textisles and became adept fairly quickly at reading -while – spinning.
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Edit : Here is the almost-finished product, as I’m running out the door, photographed in bad lighting … was in a rush. I didn’t have a chance to edge it and put tassles on . 🙁 I’ll have to add them later….
