Anywhere with a sign like this means a good time! AND good freaking fiber I may add.
OK, in a nutshell, let's say that I now officially have a fiber stash. I did have a few balls of fluff, NOW I have a stash. Holy Crappa indeed. What fun! Teri, Cheri and I braved freezing rain, sleet and snow on Saturday to go to the MOPACA show at Hale Arena (next to Kemper with the American Royal stuff. Fun was had by all, corndogs were had by two of us, fiber went home with us all. There were vendors, fiber, knitting and crocheted exhibits and alpacas walking all over the place. It doesn't get much better than that. After spending most of the day there Sat, I heard that there was ANOTHER whole area with a few vendors that we missed on Sat. Sunday I snuck back out and was able to get a few photos without the driving sleet ruining my camera. yay! Oh, and a bit more fiber (2 bags full) came home with me then too.
I had such fun meeting the people (and sometimes the ACTUAL ALPACAS) that the fiber came from. There were farms with hundreds HUNDREDS of alpaca, farms with 5-8 alpaca. I got a kick out of one couple. The husband said they had 8 alpaca now, they were waiting for their kids to get out of high school to expand. Hmmmm, where have I heard of waiting to trade in kids for critters? Gotta get that farm, the kids off to college and then I can think about an alpaca....but they're herd animals, so I'd need 2 or 3. But you have to keep the males & females separate to monitor breeding, and you can't have one lonely male, so that's up to 5. Then you need a couple of superdogs to keep them safe..... Ah well. if the man can have cows, I can talk about alpacas. :) For now I'll just dream and spin a ton of alpaca fiber. I picked up a flyer about "Planting Alpaca Beans." I grabbed it, thinking, Oh we could plant this food for our critters down the road. Oh no. Alpaca beans is the terminology for Alpaca poo. Apparently the fluffy creatures produce a serious amount of beans. I think I'll stick to the fiber. There's less waste to deal with this way!
I have been in a knitting funk lately. Nothing sounded fun, not even starting a new project! So, I pulled out a few ufo's that have been waiting patiently for some attention. Finished these the other day. Yarn is Handmaiden with a little bit of cashmere in there and they're WARM and SOFT! Working to finish up another pair of tess superwash socks that have been sitting around for over 2 years now.
OH, there was YARN there too, did I forget to mention that? I found a new favorite hand-dying company and bought 3 balls of wool fiber PLUS two fingering weight skeins of gorgeousness. The first is going to become a pair of socks. OH the colors! The purple one has sterling silver throughout the yarn. Not sure how that will knit up, but it's SOFT and silvery and gorgeous. I'm thinking it's going to become a lacy scarf of some sort. Garter stitch will be involved! jwraco is amazing. Two women that know their yarn, their fiber, their dying and their spinning!
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