Wednesday 14 June 2017

"You Gotta Have A Dream ...."



I truly believe the lyrics of this song, you do have to have a dream. So I am going to "talk about things I'd like to do". My dreams have changed over the years, some of them I have achieved, and some I am still striving towards. The current dream, which I frequently natter on about, is to move to the country. There I will have a herd of alpacas, will spin the wool, still design my patterns, but also maybe run knitting workshops. My husband's dream is to have a small area of woodland, which he will stride around managing. I am not sure if we will achieve any of this, but as I started by saying, you do have to have something you think about when drifting off to sleep at night.

So perhaps I talk about this dream too much, which may be why my other sister-in-law gave me this lovely pure alpaca ball of wool for Christmas. The wool was from Bearhouse Alpacas, near Sidbury in Devon, and is doubleknit mocha. I have been working on this alpaca for many weeks, and in fact this is version three. Number one alpaca was too sheep-like, and Number two was really like some sort of mutant. So they both had to be unravelled. I am finally happy with Alpaca Number Three, but won't publish the pattern until I have tested it out a few times. So I am going to order a few more balls of alpaca wool, and get to work on creating my own herd.


Friday 2 June 2017

Alan the Alpaca


I would like you to meet Alan the Alpaca. Alan was one of my birthday gifts from my daughter. She disappeared up to my sewing room, and the only thing she said she needed for my surprise gift was some stuffing. (I have been slightly obsessing about alpacas recently, and I hope to show you the reason soon.) 

Alan is very soft and cuddly, and when I asked where she had got the material to make him, she said "Oh, I cut up my dressing gown". I should be cross, I know. But as I was shown the dressing gown with some alpaca-shaped holes in the back, we had to laugh. I have a plan to fix the dressing gown, with a interesting new panel. I could not really be annoyed, as she had been so ingenious, making Alan without any pattern. She has always had that confidence when making things - just to go for it.