I enjoy the sound of Aunt Geri’s wheel as I spin lace weight yarn, so I thought I’d share it. I’m still working on that bag of Archie’s roving. It’s becoming, one ounce at a time, a strong, light-weight yarn with a drape-y texture. Last night I spun two ounces, one on each bobbin. I’ll ply them for the finished product tonight.
I love love love Tuscany’s fiber. It’s fluffy, soft, and makes beautifully plump yarn.
Over the holiday I got to spin my first medium weight yarn from just Tuscany’s fiber. We’re filling an order for a blanket’s worth of yarn in three colors: brown, white, and brown marled with white (Deep Roots). The picture is unfortunately blurry, but the yarn came out wonderfully.
It’s not quite white, really; it’s a very pale golden cream. So we named it “Clouds over Tuscany” to capture its fluffiness and to evoke that uniquely Tuscan golden light. It’s going to look great with Deep Roots, which is a yarn made of 3/4 Marcello 1/4 Tuscany.
Deep Roots: Marcello blended with Tuscany.
As a general rule, the alpacas are mild-mannered, sweet-tempered animals. The only exception is feeding time. Can you guess which alpaca is the pushiest?
Yup! It’s Brittany! And though getting caught in the crossfire between the girls is “all part of the experience” (as Dad is apt to say, quoting Chevy Chase, whenever anyone complains about anything), Brittany has taken this to the next level.
Mom was putting out fresh hay, which has just a touch of delicious alfalfa in it, and she wasn’t moving fast enough to suit Brittany. As Mom was pulling the hay out of the big plastic trash can she uses to move it around the barn, Brittany actually kicked her! This was the last straw in their recently escalating conflict, so Mom retaliated. She tossed the now empty trash can at Brittany, bumping her side with it. Brittany wheeled away and gave Mom her best “How rude!” look. I’m guessing that at this point Mom probably said something like “There! You forced me into that! That hurt me more than it hurt you,” to which Brittany responded “Harumph!”
In any case, a tenuous cease-fire now exists in the paddock at feeding time, and Brittany has learned a lesson that my brother and I learned long, long ago: don’t push it with Mom. None of the other girls needed to find this out the hard way, which probably says something about their IQs…they are clearly smarter than Brittany, my brother and me.
Although I’ll never, ever complain about special orders, sometimes it’s fun to be inspired by a color or a texture, and just see where that takes you. Several months ago, I picked up a delicious spring green Frog Tree Yarns roving from my local yarn store, but it drifted down to the bottom of my basket and I forgot about it. As I was packing up for the holidays, I found it again, and spun it up on a whim.
The green in the center is the color I'm using at the moment, though I also have used that pink and the purple on the far left.
I spun one full bobbin of the green roving, which has a buttery, silky texture as it runs through your hands. The fineness and color of the finished single reminded me of the first blades of spring grass. Then I spun another bobbin full of Archie’s fiber for a fine, grey strand that was both graceful and strong. As I plied them together, I couldn’t help but think of those iconic images of Stonehenge at the summer solstice.
Ok, not THOSE images of the summer solstice. More like the peaceful, empty shots of the stones, isolated in a field of bright green grass. You know, the idealist, unrealistic version of the summer solstice.
Much better. Anyway, the finished product (which is unfortunately quite blurry in the picture), is lovely. It’s a lace-weight yarn with a drapey texture.
And yes, I know the summer solstice is in the middle of the summer, not at all in the spring, but “Stonehenge Equinox” doesn’t have the same ring, does it?
Even though it was made by a third generation wheel maker, my spinning wheel is brand new. It was made when I ordered it, for me. Anyone in my family will tell you: I’m not a great share-er. But there’s definitely something magical about a well-used antique wheel.
Aunt Geri's new, old wheel.
Aunt Geri’s new, old spinning wheel is an antique she found in her father-in-law’s basement, and it is beautiful. Her mother-in-law bought it from one of those wizened old midwestern women. We’ll probably never know who made it, or even who used it, but we can make some guesses about what it was used for based on the make of the wheel itself. And it’s fun to speculate about the history it has seen.
First of all, as you can see from the picture above, the wheel itself is large in diameter. Like the bike gears on your back tire, the larger the wheel, the faster it spins. The faster the wheel spins, the more twist is put into the yarn each time you press down the treadle. This would make the wheel great for lace weight yarn or even thread, since the thinner the yarn, the more twist you need to lock the fibers together.
Looking at the mother-of-all parts of both wheels (the top part in the picture), we can see some other differences. First, even though my wheel is relatively tiny, my flier (the bit with the hooks on it) and my bobbin (where the yarn ends up when you spin) are HUGE. This is another hint: my wheel was designed for artsy-fartsy yarns with beads and feathers stuck in them, whereas Aunt Geri’s wheel was designed for something thinner. Her wheel is also a double drive, with a drive band on both the bobbin and the flier. This type of wheel produces more consistent yarn, but is also less flexible.
All signs point the same direction: this wheel was probably used for spinning thread or lace weight yarn. Aunt Geri was kind enough to let me borrow it to spin the suri alpaca roving we got from Archie’s fleece. Suri alpacas have very fine, almost hair-like fiber, and yarn from them is best spun thin and lacy. It takes FOREVER on my wheel.
Although it is not a beginner’s wheel, it has the most pleasing whir as it spins. I might have to video it so you can hear it too. It’s meditative.
When you have animals of any species, you seem to develop some odd sixth sense that instantly recognizes when something is out-of-place or out of the ordinary. I imagine it’s much like the eyes in the back of Mom’s head, invisible, but she always knew what we were up to. At my house, an empty ziplock bag in the center of the living room floor means my puppy probably just ate a pound of baker’s chocolate. When my brother drove by the barn and saw two horse butts in the breezeway, it meant that Heidi and Boogie had broken out of their paddock.
Who, me?
My brother is not a panicky fellow. He turned off his car and got out. On his way into the barn, he shut the big breezeway doors behind him, so the horses no longer had 40 acres and the highway just a few steps away.
Boogie had gone to the hay stall and dragged a bale of orchard grass off the top of the pile and into the center of the breezeway. He looked up at my brother, all innocence, “What? I don’t have an entire bale of hay right here…and I’m certainly not eating it.”
Heidi had gone into the alpacas’ stall, as casual as can be, and started eating right out of their feeders. The girls were locked out into their paddock, and Brittany was looking into the stall, greatly distressed, “She’s eating our food! She’s eating it!”
She's eating our food!!
Both horses were easy enough to round up, and they hadn’t been out long. In fact, Brittany seems to have been the most disturbed by the entire adventure! How dare that big animal just march in there and eat her food? The nerve. 🙂
Hello everyone! Hope you had a good holiday, and thanks for joining us again in this new year. Boy, do I have some great posts lined up for you. Being at the ranch means I get to share in the alpaca antics, so I’ve got some stories for you. We’ve had an escape, hurricane force winds, a new spinning wheel, and the usual adorable goofing around…
Today, though, I only have time for a quick post about my most recent yarn: Caramel Creme.
Mom found a tiny amount of Tulip’s fleece tucked away into a corner. To stretch it out (and just for fun), we blended it with a white merino/silk roving. We ran it through the carder twice to get an even mix.
We had this one named before I even started spinning it. It is delicious. I liked it so much, I spun it more on the bulky, chunky side.
I hate to disrupt your regularly scheduled alpaca antics, but I have a few housekeeping notes. I’m headed down to the ranch tomorrow and I’ll be there through January 2nd. During this time, posts may be somewhat erratic. It’s not that we don’t have internet, there are just so many other things to do. I promise to at least try to update during the holidays.
What?
And since that’s a sort of lame post, here’s a story about Brittany. The ranch was zoned “agricultural” when we bought it. To keep your agricultural rating you must sell some product that comes from your land. Because the taxes are so much lower on ag land, many people try to pull a fast one on the county government. They plant 100 knee-high pines and call their place a nursery, that kind of thing. We, on the other hand, are trying to build a legitimate agricultural business, something for Mom and Dad to have into their retirement. So Mom sent all her paperwork and receipts in to the tax assessor, and considered it done and dusted.
This was in the early days of tenure at the ranch, when we were still uncertain if the previous owners were going to show up demanding all the stuff they’d left behind. So when an unmarked white suv drove down the driveway Mom was suspicious. The suv stopped next to the alpaca turnout, and a lady abruptly exited. Without any explanation, she got out a camera and began to take pictures of the alpacas, all very strange and rude. So Mom asked her what she thought she was doing. She replied, “I’m from the tax assessors office, and I need PROOF that these alpacas of yours really exist.”
Hey! Are you looking over here? I'm coming over to see you!
Mom looked at the girls, who were standing not 20 feet away, and then back at the lady, “Well. There they are. Existing.” The lady harumphed. By this time, Brittany, who is always the most curious and forward of the ‘pacas, had decided to investigate. So when the lady took another picture, the flash went off right in Brittany’s face. Brittany wheeled away, stopping just out of reach to give the lady her best, “How rude!” look before clearing her nose in a spray of snot. The lady, in classic comedic fashion, gave Brittany an identical “How rude!” glare, and got back into her car and drove off without another word.
Which just goes to show you, sometimes people are trying to do the right thing, and you should give them the benefit of the doubt, or end up with snot sprayed all over your fancy pant suit. Or something like that.
My Aunt Geri is an artist, a real one. We are lucky that lately she has been channelling her creativity into fiber art, rather than painting. The results have been astounding.
I’ve compared felting to painting, but my work is finger painting compared to Aunt Geri’s. In the work above, she used wet felting to blend Mikayla and Marcello’s fiber for the background, then used needle felting for the horses. This piece recently sold to our farrier’s wife (he’s the guy who puts shoes on our horses).
Felting isn’t the only thing Aunt Geri does, in fact, it’s a recently acquired skill (I know, it doesn’t look like it). She also knits. She can knit reversible hats and scarves, scarves in a variety of stitches, and hats with patterns.
Aunt Geri is our go-to gal for oddball special requests. She often makes up her patterns as she goes, and is dedicated enough to redo a work many times before she is satisfied with it.
Aunt Geri and Uncle Jerry live in a tiny town in Wyoming, where winters are long and nothing keeps you warm better than knitting. I love them both dearly.
Little Bravado, our smallest alpaca and our only suri (it’s a breed of alpaca), is a man after my own heart. He’s a bit of a worry wart, always on the watch for trouble, and he is not good at sharing.
Mom was cleaning the girls’ paddock last week and keeping an eye on the boys as she worked. The big feed trough was in the center of their paddock, full of fresh hay, and as usual, Bravado was monopolizing it. All four boys were gathered around the trough. Bravado growled at them all in his most threatening “MMMMmmmmm”, and they backed up a bit. As soon as he put his head down into the feeder, they all did as well, until he noticed and growled at them again. They all took their heads out of the feeder until he had his buried in the hay, and then they all started eating again.
Bravado is the one with his head in the feeder.
This happened a couple of times before Mom decided to intervene. She yelled, “Bravado! Be nice!” Bravado looked right at her, then turned and bit Morocco’s ear. He gave Mom one more “What are you going to do about THAT?” look before sticking his head in the feeder again.
Cliff House Alpacas 