We have Greetings from the Knit Cafe, which has loads of lovely patterns, including a simple hoodie that I can see myself getting a lot of use out of. There is also The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques, which might encourage me to finally finish my Hike sweater, and then a novel, Knitting under the Influence. I also received a ball winder (not shown), which has already been put to good use. On the bottom there is a large drop spindle that came along with this:
That my friends (go ahead, be jealous) is lovely, oh so soft, caramel brown alpaca. I have a whole pound. 16 ounces. That's a lot of fiber. May I remind you that spinning and I didn't get on overly well during my first attempt this spring? This alpaca has inspired me to give it another go. It's from a local farm, Snowbelt Alpacas, in Edinboro, PA. The fiber and the spindle came from my uncle Adam (and was all his idea, which is amazing), shown here demonstrating the spinning technique he picked up when he got the idea to get this for me for Christmas: 
The sideways instead of vertical spindle was a new idea for me but made sense given the weight of the spindle versus the alpaca, and we spun a few (quite bulky) yards in this manner. However, I'm going to borrow Daisy's wheel for a few weeks and give that a go. Hopefully it will be more intuitive to me than the drop spindle!
If I forgot a knitting-type gift I'm really sorry. Please know that it was appreciated but I unpacked everything immediately upon returning to Seattle and things got put away so I might have missed something...
1 comment:
Emily, I'll be sure to have Adam read this entry the next time he is over. mom
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