Knitting Alpacas: August 2007

The lure of Cobblestone became too

much to resist. Just the thought of knitting a sweater called Cobblestone with fleece from Cobble Stone was making me giddy. I thought well, I'll just look up my notes from where I originally swatched this yarn. Hmmm, I liked the fabric created with size 7 needles. The gauge was 20 st/4". That means to get a good fit I would need to cast on 194 stitches. A little gentle shaping for the waist to make it more feminine. Make adjustments needed to create a more narrow sleeve cuff. Before I knew what was happening I had cast on. So now I have two sweaters in progress and work a few rows on one then pick up the other and knit a few rows. A sure fire way to stave off project boredom.

The last time you saw this...

It looked like this. What started life as the Equestrian Blazer has been transformed into the Tailored Cardigan from Drops Design. After knitting the left front of Equestrian three times I had to accept the fact that it just wasn't going to happen. At this point I lost all desire to finish this sweater and started on a search for something different. After getting accepted on Ravelry I found Spiral's version (the link is to her Ravelry page. I apologize if you can't get in to see it but I couldn't find a picture on her blog) of the Tailored Cardigan and knew I had found just what I needed. So far this has been a very easy knit and I haven't had to alter anything. The only thing I'm doing different is to knit 4 rows of garter stitch at the hem. Other than that it is exactly as written. Apologies for the crappy picture. I pinned the back out real quick this afternoon for the picture and didn't really take the time to make it look pretty. To be honest I was in a hurry to cast on for the front. I'm about 12 rows into it now.

Ravelry. I love it. A lot of thought has gone into this site. I love the way you can find a pattern you like and go directly to a page that shows all the different FO's of that particular pattern. You can see how each person adapted the pattern to suit them. There's so much inspiration there. I think they are getting very close to getting the site open to everyone that is on the waiting list.

Alpacas. In July we had two more cria born here on the farm. A beautiful little girl named Aztec Princess (shown here at two hours old)

and a boy, Coco.

Princess is extremely curious and independent. She's always the first to check out anything going on in the pasture. Coco has great presence and has the most handsome little face. I think he'll go to the show ring next spring. We'll also show Rose and Jaxson again. Rose got a 3rd place ribbon this year and she should do better next time. Her true black fleece is very soft and dense plus she has great conformation. Her personality has really blossomed this summer. Previously she was very timid and shy and wouldn't allow us to get near her. This summer DH has worked very paitently with her and now she will eat out our hand and allow us to walk close to her without freaking out. That will make her experience in the show ring much less stressful for her and me. Some judges are very tolerant of nervous alpacas but some will mark them down if they don't "act right". I had one of each this past spring.