A Fun Day of Handpainting Alpaca Yarn

Glenda & Susan hand painting with Joanne mixing dyes

This past Monday, my weaving guild, Loose Threads, met here at the ranch. We had planned to do hand painting of yarn for warp in our weaving. For anyone that does not know how we do this, we use fiber reactive dyes and literally sponge paint the yarns. Then we cover them with plastic and let them sit and process for 24 hours. We had a potluck lunch after we finished.  I will post a follow up on this project, as some of us will be weaving mobius scarves and others shawls. We all had such a good time, thanks girls.

Patty is busy painting

Sara & Pat hard at work

The yarn drying after rinsing them the next day

 

A fun day of spinning at the ranch

Yesterday at the ranch was a day filled with sunshine, warm weather, alpaca fiber, good food, and best of all, spinning alpaca yarn with my good friends from the Sunrise Spinning Guild.

Mary Lou

Kathy & Delta

Gail & Donna

Our guild had planned this event last year. I prepared the batts of Alpaca on my carding machine and drum carder. Each person that attended was given 8 ozs. of the Alpaca batts to spin into yarn.We spread out blankets and rugs to set our spinning wheels on at the barnyard. We watched the Alpacas, goats and chickens while spinning. We plan on knitting slippers to felt with the alpaca yarn that we spun up.  I will have to do a follow up post of every ones slippers when they are completed. Our guild also does a pot luck for our monthly "spin-ins"  The hostess provides the main dish and everyone else brings something to pass, such as salads, breads, desserts. My husband made a beef stew for our main dish. The others brought all kinds of good food to eat. It was delicious. A good time was had by all. Thank you ladies for traveling to spin at the ranch. I know some of you traveled many miles to attend. I had a really fun time with everyone.

Eating lunch under the shade from the carport