A Day with Peninsula Rugmakers Guild

     This morning I went to the Rose Garden Library in San Jose to spend some time with the hookers! My mom is the president of the local rug hooking guild, which is full of awesome fiber artists. I went today to meet Diana, my mom's friend who raises Alpaca. She was kind enough to bring her drum carder and electric spinning wheel to show me. It was awesome to get to talk with her and find out a little more about spinning and Alpaca farming. In addition to my spinning lesson, I got to show off my sweaters and see a demonstration of a non-traditional rug making technique. Just being around so many other enthusiastic fiber artists made me realize I need to do this more often.

     The biggest reason for my trip today was my present from the Easter Bunny: a bag of gorgeous Alpaca fiber that came from one of Diana's animals. When mom gave it to me I thought I would die just touching it, but of course when I got it home I could not wait to spin it. Alas, I do not own carders, and this fleece is raw!
     A whole evening of google sleuthing later I had learned that it did not need to be washed but it does need to be carded. So, I sent mom an email with the subject line, "if you give a Kelly an Alpaca fleece... she will ask you to help her buy some hand carders." Her response was to call in Diana, complete with drum carder to save the day! She gave me some of the fleece she was working with, and told me if I come over next week we can card my Easter fleece.

   

     The fiber in this gallon bag of wonder is almost ready for spinning. You could spin it straight from the bag if you wanted to, but after it goes through Diana's drum carder it will be beeeeaauutiful.

 There is also a fair amount of vegetable matter that needs to be picked out in the process...

     

   

                           

But now I do have some Alpaca ready to spin since the fiber that Diana gave me today is all carded and ready to go! 

Doesn't my Ashford Tradtional look totally spiffy next to the wood-burning stove and leather wingback chair?