Red, Red, Ready

Remember the Alpaca fibre I bought at the Tulip Festival? Well here it is, turned into yarn already: I bought 100g of hand-dyed alpaca tops. E picked them out, quite decisively. She's good like that, and red is her current favourite colour. Actually, with her dark colouring, red looks great on her. So that part was easy. What I didn't notice on the label in the enthusiasm of the moment, is that she'd picked out "hand-dyed pieces". So when I got into spinning it, I found several different shades of red in the bag. I solved that dilemma by blending a bit as I drafted--like a subtle marle effect. Next dilemma was the quantity. 100g should be plenty for a hat, but there's no going back for more. And it would be nice to surprise her with a little something extra. Solution: I picked out a bag of red merino tops from my stash. So during the week, I spun one bobbin of red alpaca tops and one bobbin of red merino. Last night I plied them together. Now I have one very full bobbin of red marle alpaca-wool yarn. It was quick and easy spinning after my various efforts at fine luxury yarns. If I skein it up and give it a wash today, I should be able to start the hat next week. That's just as well because the birthday is the beginning of November, and my calendar's been playing tricks on me again. Somehow it's nearly mid-October already.

Today is a weaving day, and we've been promised a lot of theory. So I need to be alert, and I didn't sleep very well. I'll get some breakfast and another coffee into my system and try to hold steady through the morning. Our teacher can be a little daunting when she's excited:) I am looking forward to this afternoon's class. We're going to start designing and planning our end of year projects. I have some ideas about what I'd like to make, but first I'd better hear the details of the assignment.