Category: Yarn

Mountains Of Alpaca

Published on by Jen5 Comments

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.

*    *    *

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….

Soon To Be Spring

Published on by Jen6 Comments

I was taking photos of yarn to see if I could sell on ebay,  in attempt to lessen my random stash. This very old cotton nubby yarn is from the 80’s, which was my mother’s, and which she purchased just before she died.  I was proceeding with photographing to sell, and in doing so I just fell in love with it.  I just can’t let this little stash of ‘Giselle’ go, I am posting it here instead, in honor of it ~ rather ~ in honor of my mother’s knitting. I love photographing beneath the south-east skylight, in late winter, as the particular seasonal light seems to sometimes make things look so rich with color, texture and a glow, which of course, is rich with memories.   I remember fondly my mom knitting a lot. So  I’m keeping these little nubby cotton skeins, just to have with me.  Just to have a bit of my mom’s yarn.

Now that I have looked differently at these yarns, I am thinking I will hang on to my stash, all of it, and there’ll be a time when they will speak to me.  The Vernal Equinox will be here in a blink, and the wild fruit trees are already starting to tentatively blossom here!

Really Red Revisited

Published on by Jen2 Comments


Well, folks, I’m lost out in a field of redness again.  “Really Red Cardigan” has been brought forth from simmering on the back burner as I knit up the Kilt Hose and my two nieces’ Mostly Green & Mostly Blue Pullovers.   Again, just swimming in a beautiful sea of garnet red.  Soon I’ll make it to a place where I make some decreases, or color changes, but for now, can you hear me calling in the distance ” Don’t expect me for dinner ” … and I can’t even decide which colors to put into the yoke yet ~ grey and black, or the earthy tones. Well, at about a thousand stitches per inch, I still have time to decide.

“Mostly Green” and “Mostly Blue”

Published on by Jen4 Comments


These Two Little Bears , though very simple pullovers with stripes,  were lengthy projects, at 6.5 stitches to the inch. Finished the knitting on the Mostly Green pullover, below, and now I’m midway through the yoke decreases in the Mostly Blue pullover, and will have the Autumn Sweaters ready to gift to my two nieces and photograph this coming Sunday. As Spring was incredibly late this year, our Autumn characteristically is always. Leaves are just now starting to turn and flutter to the ground. Our Northern Californian Indian Summer I think is about to end, and to put these winter-worthy pullovers on my nieces to model this weekend!

Autumn on its way

Published on by Jen8 Comments

This is the (mostly) Green Autumn Sweater for my younger niece. I had bought one of each color of green, and of blue, from KnitPicks Swish.  I thought I’d be lucky to find any combination of a few shades,  but I ended up loving the mismatched hues, and I bought more!  Blueish Teal with Olivey Mossy Green? You bet! Reminds me of Amish Quilt color combinations. ( Oh, and the row marker charm was made and given to me by Morrie. )

*  *    *  *    * *

So we returned from the “Out-and-About” Treehouse Village in Oregon, as last mentioned in this post .  We stayed for two nights and two days, and I knit most of the time. This was my upstairs little knitting nook…

…and from within, this was my view of the rest of the place. There are catwalks up in the trees , between some really high-up treehouses, all interconnected in a web of rope and wood walkways, seeming to be about 50 feet in the air !!! But we stayed in one of the separate ones, which had steps up to it, called “Serendipitree”.


Here is a photo of the outside .  My knitting nook was the tiny room above.