Single Skeins: Fino

Do you feel like you're missing something in your life? Is wool or cotton just not enough for you anymore? Do you need your yarn to be as passionate as you are? Well, Fiber Crafters, you have come to the right place! Welcome to Single Skeins, the website devoted to matching you to the alpaca yarn of your dreams! Name: Fino
Color: Silver Belle
Sign: Aquarius
Yardage: 875

Story:
"Hello there, my name is Fino. I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I thought I'd give it a try! A lot of people find me intimidating since I'm a little....you know...lacey, but once you get past the whole little gauge thing, I think you'll like me! I'm a silk/baby alpaca blend and I enjoy everything from stockinette stitch to mind-bending lace patterns."

Perfect Match:
"I'm really not very picky- I understand I'm a little higher maintenance than most...so perhaps a more experienced fiber crafter? I do really well with shawls and scarves and would love to wrap myself around you to keep you warm this winter!"

Perfect Date:
"I love to be spoiled! Take me out to dinner and then an Opera or the Symphony- I really shine on a fancy night out!"

Movies/Music/Books:
"I love a good costume drama, whether it's Jane Austen or Shakespeare. There's just something so magical about the vast English countryside, quaint manor life, and the cliffs of Dover. Some of my favorites include Jane Austen's Ply & Prejudice and Silk & Sensibility. I quite enjoy classical music and as I mentioned before, I adore opera. There is nothing quite knitting along with a good aria."

Anything else?
"Once on Spring Break in Cabo, I won a poolside competition for "Best Plies!"

New Patterns!

Hey there! We've got a whole bunch of new patterns that we're adding to our collection! We're super-excited about them and we're in the process of getting them put up on the web site so that you can see all of our shiny new patterns! Until then, here's a little taste of what's headed your way! (To order these patterns, contact your local yarn store. We don't sell patterns online.)

Dragon of Happiness by Sharon Winsauer- 2 hanks Fino in Ruby Slippers

Smocked Socks by Amy Polcyn- 1 skein Socrates in Khaki

Lovely in Lace by Christina Wall- 6-12 skeins of Tempation in Glacier

Wrapped in Ivy by Cheryl Beckerich- 2-3 skeins Socrates in Wednesday Night Green

Georgette by Christina Wall- 5-13 balls of Baby Twist in Berry Sorbet

And there's tons more! So check out the website in a few days to hopefully see more of these fun knits!

Won't you be my neighbor?

As always, exciting things are happening here at Alpaca With A Twist! Well...not actually here, but up one floor. We're getting warehouse-friends! The warehouse from where all of our products ship is a big nearly-empty warehouse downtown Indianapolis and while it's really nice to wear whatever I want to work and crank up the radio whenever I feel like it, it will be really nice to have other people in the building.
So far it's just been a lot of work to get the upstairs looking like offices. Some days its two guys up there and some days it's twelve, but it's been quite loud here for a while. These are two of our favorite guys that are working upstairs, Jeff and Cameron.
Aren't they awesome? We think they are!

Congratulations and Thank You!

So firstly, I'm going to send out a huge THANK YOU to every single one of the fabulous fiber artists who entered our Jumbo-hank shawl competition! We had some really great entries and the final decision was really really hard, so drumroll please!

(brrrrrrrrrr) (yes, that's supposed to be a drumroll)

Congratulations to Michelle Maurer of Kent, Washington!

Her fabulous design, "Hearts and Diamonds" will be available soon from Alpaca With A Twist. Check out this awesomeness!

And once again, thank you all again for your beautiful entries!

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!)

Shear Madness!!!

Some of you may know that Alpaca With A Twist wasn't always Alpaca With A Twist, and the yarn company that is now was once an alpaca farm: Copper Ridge Alpacas. There are significantly fewer alpacas there now, but they still need to be sheared to get that crimpy awesomeness turned in to yarn. And so a week ago, I met Jennifer at the crack of dawn (okay, 8 am) and we jumped in the car and first headed to Sheep Street in the Martinsville area to drop off some stuff and talk briefly about shearing (and meet the Sheep of course. Plus Jennifer keeps 2 alpacas there still) and were on our way to Georgetown to shear those Copper Ridge alpacas.I had never sheared alpacas before, only sheep, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. With sheep, you throw them over on their backs and shear from there, and by the time they figure out how to get upright again, they're pretty much done. Shearing alpacas is a much more....involved process. It starts with looping ropes around their wrists and ankles (can you still call them wrists and ankles? Must ask Jennifer) and then lowering them to the ground, pulling the ropes tight. Someone has to hold their head so they don't get spooked and try to get up and get all cut up in the process, and for a while that was my job. Jennifer did all the shearing, and we had a couple other people there to help. Each alpaca took around 45 minutes to shear, vaccinate and trim up their legs and head into a nice little mop-style that only works for alpacas and punk rockers.
But who cares about the process! The pictures are so fun! And check out the baby- she was only 4 days old when we went down to shear!