The Virtual Knitter

Yesterday I dropped in at the Alpacapalooza festival, taking place this weekend at the Western Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup.  WOW – what a cute bunch of critters!  I had originally intended to head up to Ashford BC to visit a fiber festival there, but I just didn’t want to make the 2.5 hour (each way) trip all by myself in that rain we had yesterday. 

I didn’t stay long at Alpacapalooza as I wasn’t so interested in seeing the judging that was going on, but I did visit both barns and the vendor area.  While the barns were impressive, with all of those cuddly animals, I found the vendor area, as well as the “arts” exhibit area, to be a bit disappointing.  In fact, I think the ranchers had as much, or more, for sale and exhibit at their animal stalls than the vendors had in the vendor area!

I ended up purchasing a bag of prepaired top from one of the exhibitors in the barn.   It was labeled as 17.8 oz – it’s a mix from various light colored animals, giving it a creamy oatmeal shade.  In the picture at the right, you can see both a sample of the fleece and a spindle spool (about 2.25 oz worth) of singles.  I don’t know what the WPI is – of course I’m so new to spinning that my WPI isn’t all that consistent yet anyway!

I was drawn to this fleece because I could tell it was very well prepared.  The exhibitor/owner is Paha Star Alpacas from Lind, WA.  Interestingly, I lived in Lind (a very small town in Eastern Washington) for about 4 years as a child.  As it turns out the owners of this ranch are not originally from there, but the wife has relatives who lived there at the time I did.  After she named a bunch of names, I finally recognized one family as having a daughter in my class, and a son in my older brother’s grade.  She’s going to mention our family name to her uncle, who she thinks may have attended our church at the time my father served as a minister there.  Small world.

Anyway, back to the fleece.  They had never used this mill for prep before.  In fact, I believe it’s the first fleece they’ve had commercially processed (they are not spinners).  All I can say is that it’s about the easiest thing I’ve spun yet!  I’ve been avoiding alpaca until now, having been told it’s kind of “advanced.”  Silly me though – I’ve been trying everything else that’s “advanced” like silk (that’s not going well yet), merino top and fine baby camel.  The camel is very difficult so you would think I would have been brave enough to try alpaca before now!

I’m going to try to spin enough to make some 3-ply by this afternoon.  I’ll post pictures when I finish that.