We went to Victory Ranch in New Mexico on Tuesday. I was so excited I could not contain myself.
We pulled up and were greeted by sweet dogs. The farm has Great Pyranese working in the fields and a couple decided to lay on the porch and take in some loving from the boys. Andrew loved what he called the house dog Lola.
It was time for the 11:00 a.m. feeding which we arrived just in time for. The kids loved feeding the animals and I think my husband Frank did too.
Meet Carmelcup. She is so sweet. She was just recently sheared.
We went into the shop and found all these goodies. I bought a book called Shear Spirit. It includes information on 10 Fiber Farms, Twenty Patterns and info on yarns. Victory Ranch is one of the featured farms. They had this pretty shawl and when you bought the yarn and book together it was a great deal. So I purchased the yarn and book and couldn't wait to get started on it. The knitted lace is the beginning of the shawl I knitted in the car on the 11 hour drive home yesterday. I also bought some alpaca from "Honey" to make some cable socks they had a sample of. I don't have a picture of the socks but the yarn is shown on the left in the picture.
I thought it was neat the way they labeled the yarn. If I run out of Honey I just call up and say I need X yards of Honey and they ship it. The "dyelot" is the alpaca's name.
They do have a Frankie and when they shear it I will get some to make my Frankie something. He thought that was cool. This is Frankie the Alpaca.
These are bags of fleece to be carded.
Shop shelves loaded with alpaca
The boys with their alpaca bears that as so so soft.
Darcy is the one in the book wearing the shawl and she is winding my yarn on a Knitty Knotty.
After the alpaca farm we headed to Taos. We found a yarn shop that was called La Lana Wools that was unique in that the yarns are naturally dyed and there were lots of interesting yarns too. Andrew decided to knit a row of a project that was in the shop for that purpose, to knit a row on. He found to such project baskets in the store. I just loved looking at the all the yarn.
I came across roving in the back room. I thought WOW they even have skunk. There was a basket beside it with dog hair and such too. They had wild skunk and they had tame skunk. Here is some Wild Skunk roving.
Cool Eh? Well upon my return home I went on the website and it is apparently just a name. It is 50% american wool and 50% merino. No wonder the lady looked at me like I was wacko when I said I wanted something unusual. She was probably thinking what is so unusual about american wool and merino. Hee Haw! Dumb A**. Then my husband and I got to thinking is there such a thing as a tame skunk? Obviously, in brown. LOL
This is some Lincoln Thickspun that I will use for trim on a little girls sweater.
So we headed home the next day and saw these beautiful elk on the side of the road. So I leave you with pictures of the Elk and pictures of us on the Rio Grande Suspension Bridge the day before. The bridge was cool because when you shouted it echoed. So of course Andrew and I shouted all sorts of things like Alpacas (as instructed by Darcy at the Alpaca Farm), hello and just screamed. It was so fun.
Skiing pictures will have to wait because it is now the second period of the Winter Classic hockey game where the Chicago Blackhawks are beating the Detriot Red Wings and I want to go watch the game. So stay tuned for more vacation pics. By the way I'm in a Ravelry group where we are knitting a HAT TRICK, that would be three hats in the month of January so off I go to start the first one while watching the game.
HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR. Pictures follow:
