The Sweetest Things

One week ago, I was in a meeting in Andover taking to a colleague who said her aunt keeps a few alpaca.

Yesterday I went out to Marlow to meet the lovely Julie who keeps a veritable menagerie of animals in the most idyllic spot, including these boys:

Meet Teddy - isn't he gorgeous? This is how close he got - so inquisitive - and we were able to feed him carrots.

And here's Teddy (fawn), Bubble (white) and Dallas (black) lurking there in the background. If I could've smuggled them in my bag without Julie noticing, I would've! (Do you think she'd have noticed?)

I learned loads about alpaca and came away with a few kilos of fleece. Julie's really interested in seeing how the saddle spins up in comparison with neck (2nd quality) so I'm going to take some along to the guild meeting tomorrow to see if someone would be willing to spin up a sample of each so that I can send them back to Julie. If anyone has any thoughts on spinning alpaca - they'd be gratefully received. Anyway, it was great to find another person to chat about fibre, crafty stuff and animals with.

On a knitting note, I have some photos of my Aqueous Martini Ishbel which is finished and blocked and worn today.

It was inspired by alabamawhirly's Count Olaf Ishbel which you can see via the link. I used the sixth installment of the Unfortunate Club in Dark Avenue colourway using about 70% of a skein of Encore for the small size. The last row was knitted in a scrap of Wisp in Caran D'Ache colourway a la whirly's contrast colour.

I loved the pattern and the way it was written made it relatively easy and even I didn't make many mistakes - until I got over-confident and cracked open a bottle of wine with only three rows to go!

And looky here - my cheesy face appeared in the Farnham Herald and Surrey and Hants News following the Unravel show. Thanks, Helena for taking the time to send me the clips. Barbara (wildfennel) appeared too as a trendy, glamourous knitter - she's an absolute star - but I'm guessing she wouldn't appreciate me putting the photo here! Am I right, Barbara?