Fiber Millstress of 84 Alpacas: me and my camera

What a week. First, I kept forgetting to ask Brigid for the camera. Then I took it to the mill and forgot to bring it home. I am really behind on photos.

It was a tiring week. The school play just takes it out of everyone and this year I volunteered all four nights after being at the mill.

We made yarn this week. We made rovings. We made rug yarn. We played with some new things. We got more orders, which is very exciting. We learned new things about our machines (and we keep making the mistake of thinking there are no new things to learn right now...)

Craig made a trip to deliver some yarn as well as pick up some fleeces from a friend. He must have come back with close to 200 pounds of fiber! This friend has graciously let us go thru the fleeces to see which ones we would like to process. Her blankets are beautiful and we had such a good time sorting the different colors. We have not gone thru the boxes of seconds yet. We are buying the fleeces from her as well as trading some processing for product.

More machines have been named this week as well. You all know Eeyore, the pindrafter and have heard about Luigi, the sleek Italian spinner. The tumbling room is PigPen (and boy was it today!). The 8 head spinner is Moirae, after all three of the Greek fates. Clotho spun the yarn or a person's life, Lachesis measured out the length of yarn / life span, and Atropos cut the thread (ending your life). There were individuals who were rumored to have such strong life threads that they actually frayed those around them (aka Julius Caesar).

We do have some product - yarn, rug yarn, and rovings - in the 84 Alpacas at Linwood Farms store as well as at Backstage Alpacas in Bedford, PA. When we finish with our current orders, assuming there is some down time, we will get back to makign more product. This is something we hope to make time for monthly.

Here are some pictures from the week: