From Shearing to Shawl....

The Three Amigos

Last year, I became the proud owner of three Alpacas and before I brought them home, I helped out with their shearing at Bird Farm Alpacas. I had great fun getting hands on with them, and to top it all I came away with their fleeces to process.

Daphers

I started with Daphne's fleece, and when I began to sort it, I found a fair amount of a lovely peachy beige fleece amongst the white - when she came to live with me I realised she had a golden patch on her back which had given me this lovely colour. So I picked it out and processed it separately, and ended up with a lovely big batt of honey coloured soft fluffy cloud.

My daughter helping to sort...

Once it was washed, dried and carded I spun it up as finely as I could (not easy for me!) but I ended up with 430 metres of almost 4 ply with a few bits of added texture. Enough for a fairly big shawl, not enough for a garment. I wanted something simple to show off the yarn and spent days searching for the right pattern but couldnt find anything that I felt was correct, or that I had enough meterage for. There was plenty of smaller patterns but I wanted to use every last bit of Daphne and not waste any!

The finished yarn

So in the end I just cast on three stitches and started to increase, then added some sections of yarn over knit two together followed by stocking stitch, and knitted until I ran out of yarn. And I am so pleased with the result - my Daphne Shawl. Simple but pretty, you can see the texture and colour of the yarn - and its so so soft. Daphne was a pleasure to work with and I'm sure she will be a pleasure to wear although I'm not trying it now with the little heatwave we are having!  I am sure she will be worn a lot in the winter though....

The finished Daphne Shawl

 So now I have Daphnes' white fleece ready to spin, and already have a request for a Daphne shawl in white so I had better get spinning I think!

Carding Daphnes white fleece

Ready for spinning!

 I hope you are ll enjoying the warmth at the moment, and hope you are not too hot to knit/crochet/spin etc. I've found a little shady spot in the garden that is perfect and is where I am off to now...

Happy making, and thanks for reading

Tina xx