A is for Alpaca

Hello lovelies, thank you for calling in.  First things first: La Fheile Padraig Sona Daoibh!  In other words, Happy St Patrick's Day to all of you who are celebrating. 

Today I am going to reveal to you another of my favourite things...alpacas.  Obviously this must be related to my love of sheep, and I think this goes back to 1975 when we did a school project about wool and learned about llamas, alpacas and vicunas as well as sheep.  I think they are adorable so when the British Alpaca Society held its national show in Telford last year, I went along to have a look.  They didn't let me down and I discovered that not only are they adorable to look at, they are curious, gentle and fascinating as well.  If I had land, I would definitely have some but you need to have at least an acre and sadly, I don't.  At the beginning of this month, they came to Telford again and of course, I couldn't resist, I had to go and see them.  Here they are -

 

 

 

 

 

Gorgeous or what?

 

My knitting group has a connexion with this show and this week, Joy showed us some alpacas and teddies she has needle felted.  Jean has made an alpaca as well so when they were all on the table, I asked if I could photograph them and show them to all of you.  Here they are -

 

 

Lovely work, rubbish photo!  Cue much hilarity as somebody got out a jacket and laid it on the table to make a background, holding it up in front of her face -

 

 

By no means perfect but at least you can see the figures properly.  I thought the tiny teddies deserved a picture of their own - they are jointed! 

 

 

 We had so much fun doing this.  Very silly.  Here is Jean having a go at making a teddy -

 

 

 

Don't mess with her, she is armed and dangerous!  Meanwhile, Joy was working on this butterfly brooch -

 



 

The background fabric with the pattern drawn onto it is water-soluble and will dissolve once the felting is finished.  How clever.

As for me, I am not needle felting, I am knitting.  I was invited to take a skein of alpaca wool and knit a scarf for our hospice.  The wool is lovely, SO soft and warm and I wanted to do it justice so I looked online and found a new pattern HERE.  It's coming on well.

 

 

There is a postscript to all this: last Saturday we drove to Loughborough to visit The Mathematician and we went for a walk in Beacon Hill Country Park in the Charnwood Forest.   We had a lovely afternoon together, the sun popped out for a few moments so that I could photograph these catkins (it really must be nearly spring) -

 

 

We found these Highland and English Longhorn Cattle -

 

 

We got amazingly close to this kestrel before she flew away -

 

 

And lastly, we rounded a corner and found a field of sheep and ... alpacas!  We just couldn't believe it.  You see, The Mathematician had been researching places for us to visit and she had found an alpaca farm but decided against it because she thought the Best Beloved might be "all alpaca'd out" after coming to the National Show with me, and he had agreed that he was!  But I certainly wasn't and this made my day. 
 

 

 Gorgeous, or what?

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x