Back home pretty tired after a very busy Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace with over 500 customers and 50 kilos of yarn sold.
On the farm we had three cases of fly strike helped along by warm and very wet weather. Caught early so all three alpacas are fine. It turned out that several breeders in this area had the same experience, the weather must have been just right for those nasty flies. After that, the sun came out!
I am grading fleeces again and we have started production of a new speckledy yarn as stocks of the old one are low. We combined brown, black, grey and some fawn fleeces and this is the scoured fibre.
After that it was blended with 25% white wool and carded and combed to produce the top. I think you call this colour taupe.
One thousand kilos of it are at the spinners now and we’ll be making a double knit and 4-ply version. Once it comes back it will be overdyed to produce a speckledy autumnal yarn as the white will pick up the colour. Last time we produced blue, violet, gold, green, red and the natural. Once the yarn is here I will put on my witch’s hat and play around with some dyes to see what works best before it goes north to the commercial dyers.
Our next stop is the new Knitting and Stitching Show in Belfast at the Titanic Centre. Do come and say hello if you are visiting.