Alpaca Fiber & The Oil Spill

Alpaca breeders all across the country are helping to clean up the largest oil spill in our country's history. A couple of weeks ago we sent over 25 lbs of fiber to the gulf coast where the fiber will be put in stockings and used to skim off the oil from the water's surface. This weekend at the national show in Fort Wayne, Indiana we along with other breeders cross the country donated a large horse trailer full of fiber going to help with the spill. Don't worry this isn't the great fiber used in your favorite yarns and garments but a lot of the short, dirty, course fiber we get when shearing and the fiber need just happen to take place while the alpaca industry is in the middle of shearing the over 100,000 alpacas in the US. Here is a link to a article with more information http://www.matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html

Knitting in the Park

One of my personal favorite things to do is get together with a group of knitters, enjoy some sunshine, some freshly baked baklava (I have a compulsive baking problem- I should seek help eventually) and get knitty with it. But it just adds another element of awesome when you've got a bunch of knitters of all skill levels (from really-truly-beginner to needles-so-fast-they-break-the-sound-barrier) and all of these knitters have a common goal. This particular goal was Super Scarves, the fiber crafters of Indiana's way to say thank for the 2012 Superbowl volunteers. You may or may not know that Indianapolis is hosting the 2012 Superbowl and the committee who deals with such things decided that each and every one of the 8,000 volunteers (that's a lot of 0's. Just sayin') should have his or her own hand knit scarf. The thing with 8,000 hand knit scarves though, is that you need 8,000 knitters to do a scarf each or just lots of knitters doing lots of scarves each. Anyway you do the math, it's a bold goal. But here at Alpaca With A Twist, we think it's totally doable. And we think that something this awesomely huge should also be awesomely fun. So we hijacked Herron Morton Park last Wednesday with a box of our new yarn made just for the Super Scarves and a bunch of needles, snacks and drinks, and we all sat down in a nice kum-ba-yah circle and started knitting. There was quite a bit of teaching involved, but after a few minutes there was the harmonious sound of needles clicking and the chatter of knitters. Yup. People were having fun learning how to knit. Mission accomplished. Now we just need to do it again and again until we hit 8,000 scarves. Bring it on, Superbowl. If you'd like to join us, that would be really awesome! We're going to be meeting at Herron Morton Park on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month until it gets too cold to keep knitting outside. We cast on around 6 pm and would love to see you there! (And even if you're not knitting Superbowl Scarves, we'd still love to see you!)