Pulling Myself Up

I started the day yesterday feeling really low over the demise of a cria we'd been giving some pretty intensive care to since he had a seizure on Saturday (read about it here). Last year was rough on the farm, and I started having an overwhelming feeling that we may be repeating it.

It was about the 5th grey day in a row, and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything productive. I had made several new projects recently and didn't feel like doing much more. I'm taking a short PhotoShop class and tried to work on some of the techniques, but was having a VERY bad tech-day as well with the computer and printer.... arghhh, more frustration.

I decided I needed to get off the farm for a bit! I went to the new Addie's Creekside Cafe in nearby Millville for lunch and had a great reuben sandwich and soup. It's inspiring to see how this cute cafe is coming together and being embraced by the community as well as visitors to nearby Woodford Reserve. Their food is awesome, and it's a very comfortable place to hang out.

Then I headed to Midway to talk to the owners of Damselfly Gallery, who had taken some interest a while ago in carrying some of my handmade alpaca products. Mary, the co-owner, oohed and ahhhed over my new creations, and immediately put them on display in her beautiful store! That was a nice boost. She suggested that I make some more lightweight, spring-colored scarves and felted soaps, so now I have a new direction.

Since I was so close, I stopped in at Equus Run Winery to pick up our wine club order, 3 bottles which included Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Cabernet-Franc. Of course I had to taste each, yum! Nothing had changed on the farm when I returned but it was sunny this morning and I was able to motivate myself to get some new things accomplished in the studio. Here are some more felted soaps I made:
And some sample bags of dyed rovings from my stash, a "Felter's Paintbox" which I will be making available on Etsy soon and to participants in my felting classes (by the way, I have two spaces left for Sunday's Beginner's class).I'm hopeful that we'll have some beautiful, healthy new crias running around in the fields soon, and much more sunshine to come. No more pity parties today- CARPE DIEM! Pin It Now!

More Fiber Fun

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.

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Up to my ears in Fleece!

As a world-class procrastinator, I have let a surplus of alpaca fiber (what I didn't have processed for myself or direct sale) build up for longer than I can publicly admit here.... I had the good fortune of having my friend Mamie (an alias since I haven't asked her permission to use her real name) offer to help me skirt and sort it, as well as box it up for free shipping to the AFCNA (Alpaca Fiber Co-Op of North America). How could I turn that down?

It's a dirty, smelly job, especially in 90 degrees plus weather, but having a fun and chatty friend definitely helped it go more quickly. Last night we got over 60 pounds of our fiber boxed up, a very small dent in a mountain of fleece but a start nonetheless. I do enjoy seeing the luscious colors, since alpaca fiber comes in 22 different natural shades. Here's a large medium brown fleece...

A super-crimpy dark fawn or light brown fleece that I'm showing from Jolly Mon... And a true black....
Actually, white has become my favorite since it can be dyed any color- here's some that I dyed which will soon be turned in to a rug for our new addition.

After we'd had our fill of fleece sorting, we headed to our pontoon boat on the Kentucky River and were greeted by some friends who were fishing beside our boat. We headed off to a sandy spot downriver where the kids could swim and we could picnic, drink wine and tell stories. Time flew, and we had to find our way back in complete darkness- thank goodness our friends had the good sense to have a flashlight on their boat! (My McGyver husband normally has all the right gadgets, but not this time).

I took our herdsire Sinbad to a farm in Stamping Ground this morning for a "drive by" breeding, a follow-up to a visit to a female he bred a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, "Gabby" was still receptive to breeding (she'd have spit at him if she was pregnant) and they bred again. Sinbad felt it was quite fortunate and worth his while to take a ride in the back of my Suburban for such a treat awaiting him!

This afternoon I'm back at it, sorting through fiber and determined to continue chipping away at the pile. Makes me tired thinking about it, I'm gonna go take a nap!

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