All Journeys Start with

one mess - no that's not right, but rather appropriate if you could see where/how I'm working in the rental house. This is a picture of our April Fool's Girl - Katya. She always brightens my day and her place at the top of my first entry seems appropriate.

Now to business -

Jumping right in seems to be the easiest way to start - we've had alpacas for about five years now and I've been seriously working with the fiber for the last four, or so. When I say "seriously" I mean beyond spinning a few pounds here and there. Even with the three geldings we started with, it was obvious that "here and there" wasn't going to get the fiber used up. I refuse to be a typical fiber farmer (sheep, cashmere, alpaca etc.) who has bags and bags full of fiber from years of shearings that don't get used.

I'm happy to report that by March of 2009, I actually realized I WAS ALMOST OUT OF FIBER! Since then we've done our shearing for the year plus one of my neighbor farms gave me a bunch of fiber so I'm all set - for a while anyway.

Because I work full time in addition to the farm and fiber work it's sometimes easy to lose my energy for fiber work. So to try and help myself, and make more product for sale, I'm challenging myself ala "Julie and Julia". Except that I'm starting with the book of a very funny felter, Chad Alice Hagen (http://www.chadalicehagen.com/). Her book "fabulous Felted Hats" has designs that are usable for a variety of styles both practical and whimsical as the spirit moves me.

Because I have an abundance of alpaca fiber it's what I'll be using. But that's about the only thing I'll be changing from her directions - at least on purpose.

So I'm starting with Chad's template for the "Explorer Hat" because my contractor (our contractor for rebuilding our house from a house fire back in September) has been asking for one for so long I'm finally going to make him one. I usually use DHL or FedEx envelopes for my resists/templates, but all of that was packed up when our house was cleared for the rebuild. So I'm using 3mil contractor garbage bags instead - they seem to be heavy enough for what I need and they're definitely water resistant.

I'm in Washington State and it's nice to have the sunshine you can see reflected in this picture. Plus the rental we're in is on the cold side so the sunshine is doubly welcome.

Now for the next step - laying the fiber out. First one side then the other. I tend to get turned around when it comes to making sure the resist is on top of the fiber to make adding water easier.

These are my two 3 oz piles. I have to remind myself this isn't front and back like I would normally do. This is for the left and right sides. Even with that mantra running through my head I still almost screwed it up -sigh.

I'm using fiber I had processed into batts many years ago. It's pretty hairy and made up of both alpaca and llama fiber, but it still felts well, even if it does take a bit more work than my blanket fiber does.

I suppose I should explain a little bit about alpaca fiber - there are many claims about it being finer than sheep wool and four times warmer etc. I don't know if that's ever been proven. I love it for the simple fact that it has no lanolin. When I shear I break it down into two, sometimes three grades - blanket (prime or first), upper leg and neck (seconds) and junk. I only do the seconds for fiber that is outstanding. I have an embarrassment of riches for both suri and huacaya fiber so I can afford to be picky.

Here I've laid out the four layers of fiber - each layer is set at 90 degrees for the preceeding one. This will add to the strength of the resulting hat. At least that's the plan. I've "patted the bunny" as Chad calls it to see if I can identify any thin spots - I'm still working on this part. I usually don't see the thin spots until after I've added water. After I lay out the other side I'll try dry felting (rubbing the fiber without water to start the felting process). Then the warm, soapy water and the real agitation begins - both mine and the fiber's.