After church I started right back in on fiber sorting, with another two packed-full boxes added to the stack. I do want to clarify that alpacas are really NOT dirty, smelly animals (as I said the fiber sorting job IS), though they are livestock which basically live outside and roll a lot. A lot of the dirtiness of skirting and sorting has to do with the dust and spider webs the bags of fleece have accumulated, and unfortunately the occasional fleece will have mold or moths due to my negligence and lack of space to store it properly. Hopefully, that's all history now that our new barn provides great, clean loft space for fiber storage!
After the hard work, I was in the mood to make something with fiber and decided to make some felted soaps. A new gift shop featuring Kentucky handmade products is opening in Versailles, and they want to carry some of our items including yarn and other alpaca products. I'll give a better description of how these are made in a future post, but wanted to at least feature a few photos of the process and resulting soaps. These soaps are like having a washcloth and soap in one- as you wet it, the soap lathers up and the felted fiber stays intact and acts as a soft loofah.
I was SOOO glad to have my daughter Mirian help- she has a great eye for color and it was fun to make the soaps together.
Later we headed to the river for another Sunday evening cruise, and the kids swam at sandy "Mulholland Beach." Two dogs befriended Mirian and Robert, and couldn't get enough of fetch! It's been great to see my hubby Paul so relaxed during his "vacation at home." We got back just ahead of a quick-moving storm that produced tremendous wind but not a drop of rain.
