Fiber On The Brain

According to my mom, I’ve lost my mind.

I’m learning to spin fibers to make my own yarn. So lately I’m all about the alpacas. Tom and I went to the Buckeye Alpaca Show a few weeks ago at the Ohio Fairgrounds and met a lot of nice people as well as a lot of nice alpacas.  This is where Alpaca Fever officially set in.  The next week I visited Carol Testa at Alpaca Outback Farm (on route 36 between Delaware and Marysville), and since Carol’s animals had just been sheared, I had my pick of probably 30 new fleeces.  Here are the two I came home with:

I’ve started spinning wool roving on a drop spindle, but now the challenge is to learn how to turn these beautiful fibers into yarn.

Mom thinks I’m crazy. And when I showed my friend M. the picture of the bags of fleece, her response was (and I quote): “Ewww.”  But alpaca’s softer than cashmere and warmer than wool, so I’ll give it a go, even if they do think I’m nuts.

Check back soon and hopefully you’ll seen some beautiful handspun yarn!