getting better all the time

Here is my second skein: raw brown alpaca and white merino.

It's a lot more consistent, no?

I also finished the knitting (but not the weaving in ends) of my first fingerless mitt. The phot doesn't do the colors justice. It's a very pretty colorway. The pattern is based on the Kalamazoo Knits pattern I've used before, but I dropped the thumb tube as it always annoyed me on the other pair I have.

I'm wearing the finished one right now as I type, and I have to say that it's just warm enough, fairly lightweight, and great for being in an office where they want it to be about 60 year-round.

It also occurs to me that it is already Wednesday and I haven't taken a picture worthy of my Friday {moment}. I better get focused! It's a real challenge to find something snapshot-worthy when you are only home between 6 PM and 6 AM, and most of that is sleeping.

long weekend

The weekend did not get off to a very promising start. Because this is exactly where my project tote spent four days... on the floor in MY house while we were all NOT at my house. Packed, ready to go, left by the couch.

::sigh::

Things improved from there, however.

Friday we went out to the lake. The Big Lake. Lake Michigan. It was marmallow's first trip, but the heat determined that she stayed in the shade. Plus I'm a bit nervous about trace amounts of e. Coli on infant immune systems. But lil' b got good and splashy.

Then on the fourth, we had our fourth annual hot dog giveaway. Freedom is a Free Dog!

We gave away 320 hot dogs. Lots of return visitors this year, some people planned their Independence Day celebration around what has become the traditional Free Dog on Eagle Lake. We had people taking their pictures with us, it was kind of insane. The kids had a blast, too, which is really the whole point.

And alpaca. I wound up bringing home one and a half bags of the luxuriously soft stuff.

Here's a picture of the brown, I brought back more brown than white.

God bless Daddy-B for being so completely cool with the bags of animal hair. It helped, I think, that it was essentially odorless. Lil' b and I began cleaning some of it last night... it's a time-consuming process. I may just clean as I go.

And lil'b's biggest event... the purchase and first ride of a big kid two-wheeler with training wheels! He already had his first crash, but he got right back on and tried again. Very proud mama. Marmallow also had a first tooth sprout over the weekend. Hopefully I can get a picture of that soon.

How was your weekend?

alpaca

Second post in one day - so you know it's big.

My mother just informed me that she scored a stash of alpaca. My mother. The queen of almost-but-not-quite.

She managed to get dibs on the freshly-shorn alpaca fleece of two lovely animals for free. Which is gorgeous. But I have never spun yarn. Let alone carded fleece. Let alone cleaned raw alpaca fiber. I am now desperately seeking a cheap drop spindle.

I am excited, and yet anxious. How exactly do I get my beloved Daddy-B to think that several large bags of uncleaned animal hair is a great thing to have in our house?