A Lulu of a Day

This week just won't quit.  So I'm glad I have Lulu to take my mind off of my insignificant worries.

When It Rains...

Just want to say, I still haven't gotten my nap!  Work has been crazy, and not in a good way.  Some volunteer stuff has been nuts.  And when I went to re-seam the shoulder on Aunt Dorothy's sweater vest, I unraveled the wrong side.

I know...tragic, right?  

Sorry...none of these things in and of themselves are awful, but I'm still feeling somewhat overwhelmed by it.

Current Spinning

I did start spinning up Lulu fur, and it's delightful.

She told me immediately what thickness she liked to be spun and so my hands do it rather naturally now.  Looks like it will be a little thicker than fingering weight after it's washed and blooms a bit.

And since I look absolutely dreadful in natural white llama, I will need to make sure this gets dyed a gorgeous color when I through making the yarn.

Time For a Break

Last week was an avalanche of challenges.  Fortunately I escaped unscathed.

People My Age Need More Naps!

Last week Thaddeus's hard drive crashed, I realized I had an errant dye lot in my sweater project, there was a privacy issue breach on some volunteer service work I'm involved with, and I got dinged for being non-cooperative at work during my mid-year review. 

I'm honestly incredibly grateful that all of my problems are problems of abundance...or first-world issues, if you will.

Truth be told, the computer place diagnosed and fixed Thaddeus's computer in less than 24 hours and he had a full and recent back-up of the entire drive which took about 3 hours to restore.

The sweater is a great pilot-test and one I will probably send to Thaddeus' aunt for test-sizing.

And getting negative feedback at work is never fun, but honestly, it was very useful to hear, and I can fix it easily at this stage in the game.

I still need more naps or a vacation soon.

Current Knitting/Spinning

I did continue on with Aunt Dorothy's cardigan vest and it's looking lovely (if you can ignore the band of lighter yarn across the center of the entire sweater).

Just realized that last night when I three-needle-bound-off the shoulder seam, I twisted the garment, so I'll have to re-do that as well (I blame lack of naps).

I also finally got to card the Llama fleece I got from Teri at Wunsapana Farms and the drum carder worked perfectly for this fiber.

Can't wait to start spinning it up!  Here's a photo of some of Teri's beautiful llamas - Lulu is second from the left in this shot.

Men's Knitting Retreat Remnants

In addition to memories, I brought home Lulu from the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat.

Well...Not The Whole Llama

But I did bring back Lulu's fleece.  And this past weekend I diligently washed these beautiful locks.

I can't wait to card this up, but it will have to wait until July when I'm back up in Upstate NY, where I left my drum carder.  Teri, the owner of Wunsapana Farm does an amazing job of taking care of her llamas, and while she rarely sells the fleeces from her beautiful llamas, I was lucky enough to be able to take Lulu home.

Other Items That Came Home With Me

Teri also had a local alpaca farmer display some of his yarns for us.  Staghorn Valley Alpaca farm had some gorgeous yarns available and some of those made their way back to New Hope with me.

Then our visit to Blind Buck Farms beautiful yarn shop enticed me to take these lovely hanks of yarn home too.

Finally, I was also gifted this beautiful braid of purple roving by Aaron.

If I didn't already have two spinning projects occupying my two wheels, I would be making beautiful yarn from this lovely gift.

Readers' Comments/Questions

AKQGUY asked about the simple slippers I posted about in the last blog post, "I see you also added a bit of a gusset to yours. What was the basis for that decision and how did you decide where to begin your increases?"

I basically estimated when to start the toe-up gusset increases similar to how I do toe-up socks.  Then I figured I'd just write up the pattern for it which is free to download here.