Cria Face

I caught Clementine hanging out with her brother, Big Thompson, the other day.  Is it just me, or are cria faces the cutest thing on earth??

Side Note: Her fiber is no where near as crimpy as her brother's... what a difference the sire can make!

Fiber Arts Friday: Adding Twist

While I was working on the Recycled Wool Nightcap I swore to myself that I would add twist to and relax the recycled yarn before I used it again.

Before:

I'm not sure if you can see in this photo that it's really acting like 3 strands of yarn rather than a 3-ply yarn. But you can definitely see that the kink from it previously being a sweater is still very much present.

As you can see, I still had a lot of tiny balls left over from the Recycled Wool Project.  So I separated the yarn into bigger balls and smaller balls, tied them together as I was plying and then gave it a good long soak.

After:

I now have 1268 yards over 3 skeins and 7 5/8 ounces of recycled lamb's wool in a lovely 3-ply yarn, all ready for my next project.

I will make a mental note to take more care when separating the panels of the next sweater I recycle.  Fortunately the plan I have for the yarn means the knots should not be issue... let's hope that's true.

In the meantime, I hope you are having a lovely Fiber Arts Friday.  Be certain to see what everyone else has been up to over at Wisdom Begins in Wonder.

Technical Difficulties

My computer is on it's last leg.  It no longer keeps time so my RSS feed is not working.  At least I think that's why it's not working.

For a while, if I updated the date and time, the RSS feeds would update.  But that doesn't seem to be happening anymore.

So take an old and tired computer and add traveling too much, you get me way, way behind in reading the posts of my favorite blogs.

So in an attempt to rectify that, I've started moving my favorites from RSS to Google Reader.  At least that's what I'm trying to do.

I have a list of "Subscriptions" and "Blogs I'm Following."  I don't know what the difference is or how one gets into one list and not the other.

It also seems to take some time to get from the "Dashboard" into one of these lists.

So I'm waiting for the batches to run before I delete the blog from my RSS feed.

This process is taking a lot more time than I expected, but I'm looking forward to having regular access to my favorite blogs.

Fiber Arts Friday: First Socks Finished!

As I mentioned last week, things have been sorta crazy around here.  I did however, steal a little time on Friday and Saturday evenings to work on the heel of sock #2.


Notice anything wrong with the heel?



There is a reason why one should not knit when one is tired.  :-/

I was thinking the heel seemed more difficult to work than the last one, but I figured it was because I was tired.  Everything is more difficult when you are tired, right?  So I didn't realized the mistake until Sunday morning.  Of course I did not use any lifelines because I was so confident from my last sock.  :-/

This is a reminder, if you have even the littlest thought about adding a lifeline, you should do it.

Fortunately, by the middle of the week, sock #2 looked like this...

And then sometime during my trip home on yesterday, it looked like this...

I spent a few minutes after I (finally) got home to disconnect the sock from the ball of yarn and weaved in the ends.  So...

 Ta Da!  A Pair of Matching Socks!!

Happy Fiber Arts Friday, indeed.  Make sure you visit everyone else who's linked in over at Wisdom Begins in Wonder and have a great day!

My Acrylic Scarf

Yep. You read that right. I have an acrylic scarf.

I bought it years ago. Hubba and I were in Chicago for a marathon. It was cold and I had not packed appropriately.

We went into a few nearby department stores. It was fall and therefore not quite winter shopping season.  So there wasn't much to choose from, but I found this scarf.  I didn't love it.  It was too expensive.  I was cold.

I am in Minnesota this week. I felt I should bring a scarf, but didn't think it would be cold enough to warrant a full-on alpaca scarf. So I brought the Chicago scarf.

I have not worn this thing since that trip to Chicago so many years ago. I would pull it out to wear, but always ended up choosing something else. I wasn't really sure why. I like the design and colors of the scarf, but for some reason I never wore it.

Anyway, I did bring this scarf with me to Minnesota this week. I've been wearing it for the majority of the last 3 days and I finally realized yesterday why I don't like this scarf. It's acrylic!

It's soft, but it's not satisfying. Does that make any sense? It leaves a weird sort of after-feel that I can only compare to the weird after-taste of a diet soda. It just feels fake.

So now that I know why I don't like this scarf, I'm certain it will be headed to a goodwill bin.

Making Friends

I admit that this is posed, but they both learned that the other will not hurt them.  :-)

Noodle (LGD#2) and Pancake (Miss Kitty)

Fiber Arts Friday: First Socks, Still Going

I mentioned last time that Hubba gave me a deadline to finish his socks.  That deadline is tomorrow.  I am not going meet it.  :-(

Aside from Sunday, I didn't have much fiber-y time or energy this week.  I keep telling myself that once we finish our software testing, things will go back to normal.  Of course that's not true because I'll be into testing on my other project.  So I'm afraid I may only be sharing tiny bits of progress each week until next year.  :-/

That being said, I was able to knit during the marathon on Sunday morning, a little football time in the afternoon and since I confused the time I was supposed to leave the house with the time Hubba's plane landed, I had a whole lot of knitting time while waiting at the airport.

It does seem like airport waiting is my prime knitting time.  :-/  At least it makes the experience less painful.  ;-)

I did encourage myself to knit one round each night when all I wanted to do was go to sleep, so at least I am ready to start the heel on sock #2.  :-)

I'm certain everyone else will have interesting things to share over at Wisdom Begins in Wonder because it is Fiber Arts Friday. :-)

Following Your Dreams

You may not have known that today was the US Paralympic Marathon Trials at the Chicago Marathon.

I can't find any information about it on the US Paralympic Team website or the Chicago Marathon website and unless you were lucky enough to catch the interview with Tatyana McFadden, the women's wheelchair winner, I would be surprised if you had heard anything about the importance of this race today.

The reason we know, is because the US Paralympic Committee sent Hubba an email and arranged for his trip.  They know about him because he has met the qualifying time and was named to the US National Team earlier this year.

With as frustrating as I find the lack of publicity and information about this race, I am still amazed that we were allowed to be part of it.  Maybe it's just crazy (or perhaps arrogant) to decide to try for a spot on any Olympic Team, but he did the work and found himself with a realistic shot at making that dream come true.

Alas, it was not our day.  In our estimation, about 10 guys had a realistic shot at the two positions on the team.  Hubba was the 6th American and therefore did not make the team today.

Fiber Arts Friday: First Socks are Progressing

Taking a page from the Wonder Why Gal herself, I brought my first sock to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last Friday.  It was September 30th.

Yep, I went to the DMV on the very last day of the month. I had used up my grace period so it was my last chance to remain in compliance. I brought my sock because I figured I would have plenty of time to work on it.

The only thing is, our local DMV office is fast, efficient and friendly. There were 25 people ahead of me and I was in the office for perhaps a half-hour. I thought for sure I would be bound off and well within sock number two, but it was such a short wait that I only finished two rounds on the ankle.

The actual very first sock in all of it's glory!

I did finish it over the weekend though. Hubba put it on, put a big smile on his face and then tried to establish an Estimated Completion Date for sock #2... Two weeks. :-)

Aside from the little bit of DMV time and Knit Night, I have not had much time for fiber this week.  So I'm not sure I'll have the second sock finished in within the two week deadline, which would be next weekend.

I hope you all are having a great day.  Be sure to visit the other Fiberistas who have linked in for Fiber Arts Friday and tell them how awesome they are.

Introductions

We started to introduce the dogs to Clementine on Sunday.

The Alpaca Dog has been a perfect angel.  He's met cria before.  So he sniffs her then comes right back to us.

Wonton (LGD#1) has also done very well.  She grabbed at Clementine's tail, got a swift swat on the nose and has been very good ever since.

Noodle (LGD#2), on the other hand, needs a bit more work.  She wants to play with Clementine and keeps swatting at her with a big, giant paw.  Of course Clementine weighs about 14 lbs and Noodle weighs close to 90 lbs.

So we'll keep up with the supervised visits for a while. :-)

Introducing: Alpacamundo's Clementine

So, our final official cria watch for 2011 lasted all of half a day.

I had just finished unloading the car after running errands most of the morning.  I headed out to the alpaca corral to say hello to the dogs before I went inside for lunch.

Kocoa was acting very uncomfortable and kept looking at her backside like "What the heck is going on back there?"  Though, I don't think she was thinking "heck" if you know what I mean.

I ran inside to let Hubba know I thought she was in labor.

We decided to bring the dogs inside so she could be in labor without puppies bothering her.

As soon as we got the dogs out of the corral I saw a tiny black nose poking out.

So the dogs went straight into the dog run and we sat down to watch.

This was the first time I was there to see the entire birthing process.  Actually it was the first time for both of us.  All of the girls were pretty interested in what was going on too.

I ran inside to grab my phone so I could call a friend to ensure everything was going properly.  The whole process took about 15 minutes.

The cria was up and nursing in just over an hour.

In fact, she was actually nursing before she was walking since she was lucky enough to get upright in the exact right location.

The puppies haven't met Clementine yet, but I thought you all should.  :-)

The puppies will meet her tomorrow after she has some time to get control of those long legs.

So this is Alpacamundo's Clementine.

She is the daughter of Enchanted Sky's Kocoa Moon and either Blue Mesa Yoda or Smokey's Bandit at Pastoral Profits.  We will have a blood test and new cria exam in the next week or so.