Carding Alpaca...

Remind me not to do that again!! First off, I didn't clean it before hand because it's pretty much just sandy...ugh! My allergies are now killing me from all the dust that carding up dirty Alpaca caused...also just want to say this now. I, Gnat, am not a fan of processing Alpaca..if I say that I plan to do this again...please send me an email or message and direct me back here. I will not say that I don't like alpaca but I will say...not a fan of the processing or at least the carding of it!

I chose to blend it with some of my raw Corriedale/Merinolocks that I had dyed brown and I will admit that I LOVE the batts that came out of this process and can't wait to spin them up but I did not enjoy the process nor will I enjoy cleaning up the carder after this process...ugh!

Ok...so since I've complained enough...here is your reward. A picture of my LOVELY alpaca batts. They are fantastic but I will not repeat the process. Hopefully these 5 oz will get me some nice fingerless gloves because I plan to swap the rest of this beautiful fleece the next chance I get. I still have about 6 oz...so if you want to buy it off me or swap me some wooly goodness let me know!
I just checked...I have about 7 oz left of the 100% Suri Raw fleece from an alpaca named Sarletoni. :) It's a beautiful mahogany brown fleece.

Ok...well..it's already 11 and past my bedtime! I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully after work I will get a chance to clean the carder and more of my raw Corriedale/Merino fleece so I can get started on that project.

Weekend Update! and some Fiber in the Mail! an FO and a WIP!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity! Friday night, my friend Carrie had her 30th birthday party at a local Bingo joint! Yes, Bingo! We all realized pretty fast that your money goes fast! I only managed to spend about $3 but others spent more. One friend of hers managed to win about $100...but he was the only one winning. :)

Here's me and Carrie with our Bingo cards! ahaha

Then here's Darci and Crystal with theirs. :)

Saturday, I had to wake up at about 4:30 to take Kenny to the airport. A very special woman, Grandma Pat passed away last week and he flew up for the funeral. It was a quick trip as he was back here by 5:30 on Sunday. It was good that he went though, because his sister ended up in the hospital on Friday through today with some stomach issues. She is finally home and hopefully better.

The rest of Saturday, I spent with my sisters and then that night my cousin Nathan and I went to the Rays game and Big n Rich played afterwords! It was tons of fun!! We met up with Carrie, a friend Kim and their boyfriends to watch the concert. They played until after midnight! I was exhausted the next day!

Sunday, the dogs and I headed over to Manda's Fiber Fun House and the pups swam even while it was raining! You'll have to wait until tomorrow for those pictures! We had a great day hanging out. Abby and her dog Nala had a bit of a riff, but they were both find after. It freaked me and Manda out more than the dogs.

This weekend was also a great mail weekend! I got some fiber that I had swapped for. In the Spin or Dye Swapping Group on Ravelry, I swapped some of my raw fiber for some others. :)

I claimed the following Romeldale from Sockpr0n. It's a beautiful oatmeal color!

Along with her package, she sent me some beautiful stitch markers! I love purple!I also did a side trade with another Ravelry from Ohio! Hoping to meet her when I'm up there sometime! She sent me some BEAUTIFUL Corriedale for some of my cormo. Can I tell you I just drooled over this stuff! It's a beautiful gray color and it's got very little VM in it! I want to get my hands on some combs for this! I think it would comb up so nicely!!
She also sent me some goodies along with my swap package! She was great to swap with! Here's a close up of the fiber! YUMMY!!
I finished my step-sister Luz's Morning Surf Scarf this weekend. It is not as long as I had hoped but I'm going to see if I can massively block it out to get a few extra inches. We'll see how that goes. The yarn is my handspun Ramboillet, which I LOVED working with and the pattern is Morning Surf Scarf by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer. I also loved this pattern. It's quick and easy and pretty!! Well...my model here is pretty lovely too so I how can it not be just perfect. :)
I also cast on for a gift for a friend. It kind of looks like a scarf but it's actually a lovely lace table runner! I made it longer than the pattern suggested and it's coming out beautifully. The pattern is Jenny’s Tansu Table Runner by Mel Clark Craft Knitting and the yarn is Arucania Ranco in color 105.

Hope you are having a great week!! I have lots going on but will catch you guys up one step at a time! :)

Happy Spinning, Knitting, and Dog walking!!

Sunday Fiber Fun day at Manda's!

This past weekend was great!! Saturday, I went fishing with Kenny, his dad, and his step-mom. We had a great time. The weather was nice and hot but with a nice breeze. We were fishing for tarpon but we mostly caught small sand sharks. We did get to see the tarpon rolling and it was AWESOME! I must admit I got a little too excited when we finally saw them. They are huge! I wish we had caught one but no one seemed to be catching any near us either so that made us feel better.

Sunday was Fiber Fun Day at Manda's! I love those days! I think we've pretty much decided that they need to be done often! It was just four of us, Manda, Monica, Krisha, and me. We pretty much sat around for 7 hours and talked, spun, and knit. I used Manda's drum carder for the first couple hours, processing the fleece that I had dyed. This first picture is my set up. I would first flick out the ends to get the ends opened up and then ran it through the drum carder. Notice the yummy daquiri near me. hehehe :) They were SOO good!!
Check out how they came out!! SOOO pretty!! This first dark pink one is going to be on it's way to Jasmin from the Knitmore Girls podcast this afternoon. It's a thank you for sending me the fiber taster, which I really need to share with you guys by the way!! UGH! (mental note to post this soon)
This one may be off to another podcaster soon. :) Her co-podcaster received fiber when she got her wheel so I owe her some. I think she will like this one!And then the purples, which came out so great! Both are slightly different, which I'm not sure you can tell by these pictures but they are so awesome!!
Well...after carding up these four I just needed a break. I LOVE drum carding but it does take a lot out of you. I'm hoping to go over and take over her drum carder again and make more batts! I'm thinking I might sell some to see if I can raise money to get my own drum carder. We'll see. ;)

So...I took a break and spun for a while. Here's a pic of Manda and I spinning on our Majacraft wheels. She's got the Rose I believe and I have the Pioneer.
The day was lots of fun! I couldn't believe we spent over 7 hours there...at least I know I did!

I also got to witness the feeding frenzy over the Phatfiber boxes. Manda and Monica tried to both get them and I swear they were all sold out in less than a minute!! It was crazy! Manda got one but Monica didn't. It was just insane!! We decided that we need an idea like this! It's so genius!!

Have a great Hump day and hope you all have a fibery week!

Fun with Dye Night!

Last night after work, I swung by home and let the pups out, fed them and then went over to my sister house. She is having surgery this summer and she wanted us all over for her only to tell us all once. We have a big family so sometimes when big things happen in our lives we end up having to tell the story like a hundred times. I'm with her on this decision to tell us all at once. :) So, we went over and she told us what they are planning to do. She's not sure when the surgery will be but it will hopefully be within the next month.

After her announcement, she decided to make spaghetti and meatballs for the family. My nephew just had his braces tightened so I took him, my niece and cousin's son to Tropical Smoothie to get them a smoothie. We then all ate together sans a couple brother in laws and I headed home.

When I got home I decided I wanted to dye some of the fiber that I cleaned last weekend. Sunday, I'll be heading over to my friend Manda's house and taking over her drum carder for the afternoon. :) I wanted to dye the fiber before I carded this time...so last night I figured was a good night since the fiber would be able to dry before Sunday.

So I first separated the 1.5lbs of fiber into four batches of about 6 oz each.

I then soaked the batches in warm water for a bit while the pots were warming up and I was adding the dyes.

Next I drained the water and rung them out and dropped a batch into each pot. I only have two pots designated for dyeing so I did two batches at a time. My first round I tried to do a purple but put too much blue.I did a red but it came out more pink than red. I like it though.

The second batch I tried two more purples but for some reason the tips of the fiber was dying more reddish and other ends more purple-blue. Here is one sample of the batch. I actually carded this bit even though it was damp and it came out awesome! I'm excited actually!Here are the four batches drying so I can card them up on Sunday!! The first two are on the right and then the purples are on the left. I'll take better pictures on Sunday of them.
I'm so excited to play with them. I can't wait to test out different ways of carding them. I'll probably start with batts of just one color each and then start blending! So much fun! Hope no one else expects to use Manda's drum carder sunday because I'll be using it all afternoon! heheeh :)

Tomorrow I was supposed to be going to the WWKIP day in Tampa but my FIL asked if I wanted to go fishing and since I haven't gone in a really long time...I changed my plans. I hate canceling on people but sometimes it happens.

Happy Friday!!!

edit:I just linked this post to Fiber Arts Blog Carnival. Go check out other posts!

I'm still trying to get back up! Frankie is better!

Ok...so yes you can blame the twilight series for my lack of posts. :) At least this time....I started the first book last monday and I am already reading the last book Breaking Dawn and really I think it's my favorite. A lot of people bashed it but I loved it!! I thought the twists were great and am loving reading them again!

Ok..enough about Edward and Bella! Back to knitting and dogs. We will first do dogs. :) OK...here's my DOT post a day early.

I thought I'd share video of Frankie and Abigail playing. He is back to his normal crazy self. He is also back to sitting for me. With the bandages on, he wouldn't sit not matter what I did. Now he's sitting along with the rest of them. He is a good boy!

Also I'm sorry about the bad video lighting. It was an impromptu video taping. I'll work on getting better video of them playing it's hilarious!! Especially when Jackjack gets involved. :) He was too busy sleeping to play at this point.

after the water break...they started back up! :)

Ok.....knitting. I have been knitting a bit during training calls at work and some over the weekend but honestly all I've done is read! :) hehehe I'm almost done with my dad's vest and I'm TERRIFIED of running out of yarn. I hope I don't but if I do I guess I'll have to do another knitpicks order. ugh... :) hehehe I'll be knitting at knit night tonight so hopefully I'll get some progress done.

Here is the vest prior to the frogging it went through.
I forgot I had these pictures to share with you but here is post frogging yarn. That is a lot of knitting that got ripped back but it's for my dad so it's got to be as close to perfect as possible. The reason it was frogged is because I was knitting a size too small. I'm already back to where I was and more so I'm good. I can't wait to finish but again...fear the running out of yarn!
The yarn was washed before I started re-knitting. I'm not a fan of knitting with kinky yarn. heheh

Spinning...I've been spinning even though I'm not knitting. I spun at my guild's meet up this weekend. We had 20 people there and 5 new members joined! It was AWESOME! I also found a place to stay for SAFF in North Carolina in October so I have officially decided to go to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair! YEAH!! I'm so excited. I've already started working on getting a meet n greet set up and also get goodie bags! FUN!! As soon as I iron out the details I'll let you all know if you are going where to meet me! :) Not that I'm a celebrity or anything but I would love to meet my listeners or readers!
I also took a break from reading on Monday and spun. :) I'm working on the blue superwash merino batt. It is spinning up SOOO nicely! I love batts now!!

I also cleaned another pound and a half of the fleece! It's coming along nicely and I can't wait to card more and figure out what I'd like to spin up! I'm thinking a shawl. First though I am going to play with dying it!Ok...well..hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all and sorry about being such a bad blogger and blog reader lately. I'll work on it. I should have a podcast up by Saturday or Sunday! So keep your ear out for that!

Happy Spinning, Knitting, and DOGGIES!! :)