Felted Wine Bottle Cozy

Oh the stuff I do! I just made this thing here.

That is an alpaca wine cozy. In theory it will keep cold wine cold. Unfortunately it does not fit over champagne bottles.

I had a lot of alpaca left over from carding, the stuff that isn't quite up to snuff.

Undoing my Ravelry Violation

OK, so here it is.

Simple Tapered Scarf

I will explain exactly what I did for this particular scarf but I consider my directions only a suggestion. If you start with more stitches it will be better as a head scarf. I actually have made a series of scarves with this general design, some wider and longer and some narrower and shorter. Any yarn that feels good on our face will do. The key is to use oversized needles to let it drape. So do not worry about gauge or any of that, cast on and go!

This is natural fawn suri alpaca from ohio that I hand carded and spun.
It’s fingering weight.

The pattern is simple. It’s all stockingette stitches with gradual decreases. You need 40 inch circular 10 sized needles. In metric that’s 100 cm circular 6 mm sized needles.

1)Do a Cat Bordhi magic cast on with 70 stitches on top, 70 stitches on the bottom.
2)Round 1-3 Knit, only the top stitches, we’ll get to the bottom stitches after step 7.
3)Round 4 K34 K2tog K to end
4)Round 5 Knit
5)Repeat Round 4(but keep K2tog in center of row), and Round 5 until there are 20 stitches left
6)K2tog in center every row until there are 8 stitches left
7)Bind off remaining stitches together and weave in end
8)Repeat steps 1-7 on the bottom

if you like the colors of my scarf you may hand paint it as I did.

Here's some images pertinant to this pattern.

A beginning of a scarf modeled by Sally.

Some scarves combined

Possibly my favorite

Three scarves braided together

For those who are unfamiliar with Cat Bordhi's magic cast on, this video is for you. It taught me!

Alpaca Fleeces

I have been dyeing some fleeces. washing and dyeing and it is fun. I have used mason jars to do little batches, slightly different colors and random fleece.

My thoughts seems scattered but I've done a lot and haven't posted in a while.

I discovered via ravelry Fermented Suint Mix which reminds me of bokashi. I actually have inoculated my mix with a little bokashi juice and added a little epsom salt since alpaca do not sweat like sheep.

Anyway, a fleece I dyed today is very, very nice. The one I did yesterday is nice but not like this one. They are both huacaya but all alpaca are different.

hopefully I'll get my camera back from the county so I may post pictures soon.

Gabrielle's bokashi posts