Oh and Happy Father's Day too!
Yesterday I spent a delightful day out in the country learning to spin silk and alpaca. I had a great time, didn't embarrass myself in front of strangers - at least not that I know of. If I did then they were polite enough to laugh at me behind my back instead of straight to my face...I do love being Canadian!
There was a small vendors exhibit and although I was terribly tempted to buy a wheel (so pretty!) I bought some half ounce baggies of different fibers to try out: some angora (those bunnies are cute) from here, some silk/merino and silk/cashmere blends from here and a set of handcards so I can prepare and blend my own. I can also use the handcards to mix up colours after I've dyed my own tops. Cool!
The alpaca seminar was run by Hanne Quigley from Silent Valley Alpacas...see aren't they cute! We took sheared fleece, brushed it out to align the fibers and spun it straight from there. My spinning was rather icky but the fiber is much shorter than I'm used to and not prepared into a top. There was a woman in our group who was probably in her 70s or 80s who spun the most beautiful, consistent lace weight. There was also a woman with her son from Perth. She had just bought two alpacas from Hanne and wanted to learn to spin...but had her son Gavin learn first so he could teach her. He was totally rockin' the spinning too! Hanne was fun to talk to and I learned a ton about alpacas.
All in all a great day.
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Okay I'm feeling a little trepidation that one day I'll call up this blog and see that you've stopped acquiring cats and switched to alpacas... if they would keep the lawn down, I'd be happy to store them here for you in the back yard jungle.
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