Alpaca?

I didn't know what I was going to call this post, but then I realized that a lot of it revolves around not-alpaca. You'll see...

First, I knit this hat - which *used* to be the Alpaca Ski Cap - for the store. The yarn that was originally used was discontinued and so I knit it in some lovely Cashsoft Aran.



Another bonus of working in a yarn store is that you get to knit things you wouldn't make for yourself, but still enjoy knitting.

And on the first Friday of each month, there is a spinning group that meets. The owner was kind enough to lend me her folding Lendrum since my Kromski Symphony isn't very portable. I grabbed some fiber on the way out the door yesterday morning and got a bit of a surprise when I went to spin it. There were two little braids of fiber labeled "Alpaca" which I believe I got from a secret pal at some point. Well, I pulled it out and it certainly wasn't like an alpaca I have used! It had a lot of guard hair and really didn't feel like alpaca to me... not the soft squishy fiber most of us are used to. I don't know if it's just a different kind of alpaca or if it's llama perhaps? In any case, it spun up quite nicely anyway. I was jokingly calling it "fake alpaca" all night.

The resulting yarn is not as even as I usually spin, but it was a new wheel for me and it's a single treadle with scotch tension - much different than my large double treadle double drive wheel. All things considered it turned out well!



Here's the mystery-alpaca plied and drying in my bathtub. There were two colors, a navy and a brighter blue, so I plied them together for a barberpole look. I like it!



You can see the barberpole effect in that picture, as well as the guard hairs. The yarn looks a bit fuzzy - like you'd expect from an angora yarn, but isn't quite as soft.

I've been doing some other spinning lately, but this one at home. At Sock Camp my roommate Marisol bought one of the Sheep to Shoe kits, but wanted a worsted weight yarn. She's just learning to spindle spin, but decided that since the fiber wouldn't fit in her suitcase and she wasn't sure how fast she could get it spun, that she'd leave it with me.



The colorway is "The Claw" and this part kind of matches my wheel! The color repeats are very long, so I haven't hit the purple yet.

And last but not least, I got one of katkoe's random mailing Wednesday surprises, and came home tonight to a little envelope with these:



Stitch markers with the names of my (usually) beloved cats in an envelope that appears to be made from plastic bags!