Note – Our blog post today was written by Aunt Geri. Let’s give her a warm welcome to the internet!

Warm greetings from frigid Wyoming – 24 degrees below a couple of days ago. I feel fortunate to have only 2 foster horses to care for while the Cliffhouse Alpaca team immersively tends the hairy “herd”.

Being a driven person, knitting and spinning for Cliffhouse provides some balance to my needs for calm, creativity, and production. I am easily bored, so I often randomly mess with colors, textures, etc.. Production always wins me over and I implement some crazy ideas almost immediately. Excitement peaked in December over a new scarf idea – use several different yarns for special effects. The wonders of alpaca mixed with contrasting fibers for a visual and textural feast!

We call these new creations “Magic Scarves” due to the beautiful fabric formed from 3 utterly different yarns. The base alpaca yarn provides a soft halo and warmth, while various “accent” fibers bring different drape, luster, and shimmering color and texture variations. These scarves are knit vertically, which creates a wonderfully dense and balanced drape. Gorgeously complex – MAGICAL!

In the samples shown here, the purple is my favorite. It is so soft (alpaca and silk) and richly colored with a gold/wine accent. The blue one is made with a beautiful bulky alpaca yarn with fuchsia and aqua undertones. Mixed with sleek boucle (bumpy) yarn and shimmering ribbon, it reminds me of the winter sky in the Dakotas – BRRR! The gold scarf is the color of a timothy hay meadow – eat on little four-legged ones! This one has fringe that is embellished with glass
beads and pearls – all for the Incan gods of fleece.

I will keep letting you know about some of my “crazy” idea projects – as my brain downloads them and allows my hands to turn them into reality.