Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just finished spinning a little bit - actually need to let my fingers rest!
Got into storage, found my drum carder, and the alpaca. Surprised me how much alpaca wasn't there, until I remembered that I'd made two felted hats out of the same batch!
Spent a good couple of hours using the carder, both with the alpaca (got several batts from it!) & then the fiberfill - pretty much until my arms got tired from turning the crank!
Then I decided to go ahead and start spinning with the fiberfill (no, seriously!) since I had so much fun playing with it on the carder, and it made into batts so well...and I have an entire bag I can turn into batts
Once I had two big batts, I made the spindle - very quick & easy to do with 2 cd's, a grommet, a cup hook, and a dowel. I even sanded the dowel, so it would be nice and smooth.
The fiberfill is spinning up quite nicely, and I'm remembering HOW to do it as I go. I figure it will make a great knitted or crocheted shopping bag once I get enough spun and plied.
I'll put up pictures as soon as I can get them taken!

I have a Louet Junior Drum Carder that I bought years ago, and it's quite fun to use.
I had forgotten how satisfying it is to take a big wadded mess of fiber and turn it into beautifully combed, aligned, ready-to-use batts. Spent a lot of yesterday playing with it and the fiberfill.
It kept the cats very entertained cat_whee - it makes an interesting noise (tiny metal comb teeth brushing together), and they watched the wheels turn until it looked like they were getting dizzy.
Did almost no spinning, but I now have enough fiber prepped to take with me wherever I go!
As a side note, I do believe that my arms are getting a GREAT workout. I switch off arms while cranking, as one gets tired, I'll use the other. rolleyes
I plan to make a carry bag for the spindle and fiber out of the fiberfill, once I get it all spun up and plied - it should be fairly close to waterproof, and very strong, I think.

I'd be happy to send you a couple small batts of the alpaca, if you'd like them.

That would be wonderful! Wait until you get the alpaca, so you see how small they really are, before you send any (an equavalent amount between the two would be just fine!). I'm not sure how much yarn it will end up as - definitely not enough for anything large, but possibly something lacy (like a scarf).

Working on two scarves right now, both involve self striping yarn. One of them is two balls in different colorways, I'm alternating the balls every two rows for stripes so I get the stripes I'm knitting and then the "striping" of the yarn changing colors. 'Tis awesome stuff. biggrin The other one is one ball of the same self striping yarn, one ball of a black yarn. It's knit the same way though (1x1 rib stitch, switching colors every two rows) so the colors on this one should really pop.

Here is the first one:



Here is the second one (I just started it):

Thanks. smile I got sidetracked by sock knitting, so those projects are still undone, but that's okay. I got this stupid pair of socks finished finally, the second one was giving me fits. O_O It's not a difficult pattern, quite easy in fact, but the yarn was apparently just atrocious, I frogged the second one something like four times before I finally managed to finish it. But it's done now, thank goodness.

In the latest pic on the first postign - the yak yarn...Is that the natural color, or was it dyed such a lovely deep chocolate brown? First thing I thought of when I saw it was a Hershey bar!