Cardi for Chloe? Nope! Cable Duffle Coat for Alexis!

A couple years ago my daughter Michelle and her Aunt paid a visit to our local yarn store! I think knitting fever hit Michelle because she had purchased enough yarn to make herself a scarf and a pattern for me to make her daughters a cardigan -Coat by Sirdar. Woo Hoo! I was thrilled!

But I never got around to making the sweaters, until now.

Michelle had given up on the sweaters or forgot about them and bought Chloe a natural coloured sweater for christmas. So I couldn't make her another natural colored one.

I started out using some homespun yarn that I had hand dyed myself (green) Not exactly a little girls color and of course Michelle didn't like it. So that was frogged!!

Then I began spinning some natural coloured Canadian Arcott for a Cable Duffle coat for Alexis instead. This is the process.

I spun up about 1400 yards, washed and set the twist and began knitting and knitting and knitting. Decided to knit a size 5-6 hoping that the info from Ravely was correct that the sizes were big and they were correct, I would guess the size is about an 8-10.

I got the back done and left the stitches active so that I could neatly join the shoulder seems by using a three needle bind off. Then I knit the left and right fronts. When it came time to join the shoulder seems I had knit the back about three or four rows too long to make a cable join so had to unwravel it a bit. That wasn't too hard. Then I knit one sleeve, then the front borders, then the hood, then the hood border and finally the second sleeve. I joined the coat with a mattress stitch. Michelle wanted a certain brown button for this coat so I went to my local button store aka fabricland and found the exact button she had suggested. Sewed them on and voila!!! a new Cable Duffle coat for Alexis. Now the test , will Michelle like (wear) the coat on Alexis or will it just sit in the closet ready for Good Will next year. We will see.

This is the way we wash our....

Llama fibre, wash our llama fibre, wash our llama fibre.

Rick, myself and Logan (grandson) enjoyed a very nice Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago at Sunlark Llamas in Harrowsmith. At first Logan was frightened of the strange looking llamas, but very quickly he felt at ease with the friendly animals and was soon mimicking the llama hum.

There where brown fibre, I mean llamas, white ones some almost black and beige and Susan had bags and bags and bags of their fleece just for the picking. As grandpa and Logan paid the rest of the farm a visit I got to pick out some SOOOFT fibre. I bought an almost black fleece and a dark brown and am hoping to get back and pick out a couple more, maybe a white and maybe a beige and maybe a .....

I left the farm excited but also a little nervous because I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me, how to wash this beautiful llama fibre without felting it and how to card and spin it without loosing the softness and could I even spin it!!

After a trip to my local hardware store to buy some Animal Wash(which is supposed to be used to wash and prepare animals for show making them shinny, and recommended by an master spinner/weaver) I headed home to see if I had just made a big mistake or if I was headed into a whole new world of gorgeous fibre for spinning.

After a quick search on the internet I found a video on washing alpaca, I followed the ladys instructions precisely, because it worked so well I thought I would post it here .

I spent five hours Sunday afternoon soaking, rinsing and rinsing and rinsing llama fibre.

Monday was a beautiful, sunny day so I set the fibre outside to dry in the sunshine and by that afternoon I was carding, dry unfelted fibre. I decided because I was new to spinning and hadn't spun anything except sheep fleece that I would card a mix of white/koolade dyed Canadian Arcott fleece with the llama fibre. Logan, Alexis and I had dyed up some blue fleece the night before to make some leg warmers for Alexis sister and I broke into some of it to add to the brown llama fibre.

The carding seemed endless because I flick carded ALL the fibre before putting it thru the Patrick Green carder, because I could only work on it afternoons, it took all week but wow was it worth the trouble. I decided to try carding one batt of just llama alone and was greatly surprised at how soft it turned out (I can see endless scarf knitting for my whole family out of this stuff) I ended up with eight 50 gram batts of llama fibre ready to spin into this BarHarborHoodie by Amanda Scheuzger for Logan. I found it in the September issue of Creative Knitting.

I started spinning some of it Thursday afternoon (I couldn't wait) and it is amazing to spin, glides thru my fingers like butter, (not exactly a spinning term) and I have one bobbin of singles spun. I've started the next single and have about 150 grams spun, So I can't tell if it is successful yet thaat will have to wait until I finish the second single and ply them together. Stay tuned until I get that done and ply the first skein and I will post some picks.

Yesterday I finished the first skein and have 228 yards of SOOOOFT llama/Canadian Arcott fibre. Again I couldn't wait to start knitting so this afternoon I started knitting Logans cardi. I've got 5 inches done and can't believe how soft, light, soft, amazing, soft this stuff is. I made a collage of the process.  And also a pic of the finished hoodie. 

Thanks for visiting!