Where Did January Go?!

It's now February 1st and I don't know what happened to January?!  I know some of it I spent in CA with my parents.  Dad is in a rehab facility recuperating from a car accident back on Thanksgiving and Mom was having eye surgery.  Mom got to try spinach souffle (cooked in an 8 cup Pyrex measuring cup no less) as well as home made butternut squash soup.  I made Dad a black mouse with teal ears/nose/tail for his room while we sat and talked one visit.  We also mailed the pieces of a felt mobile to hang in his room - of course I didn't get any pictures of the pieces, but they were based on the Celestial Mobile by Marianne S. Dubois in "Designer Needle Felting".  I hope it brightens it up for him a bit.

I've also taken two cheese making classes with Julie Steil of River Valley Cheese in Snohomish, WA.  I'm still working on the aging side of the process - I've lost the rounds of Tomme, Blue Tomme and Camembert I've tried so far.  But Julie says that aging is the most difficult part of cheese making so I haven't given up.  My goat cheese and goat/alpaca cheese are coming along - my favorite is still the blended goat/balsamic vineagar cheese.  Next on the list is to make provolone from my stock pile of goat's milk.  I have the culture, now to give it a try and get the aging process going.

We're starting to ramp up for the 2012 market and festival season - we're back at The Redmond Saturday Market and we'll also be doing a Spring show in Duvall in March and probably the Duvall Plant and Garden Art Sale in May.  I'm hoping we'll have the llamas and alpacas at some of those venues.

My taxes are calling, as is the scarf I started that needs to be wetted down for felting. 

Happy 2012!

The Weekend Before Christmas

We'll have all of our products in our booth at the Washington Public Market this weekend, http://www.winecellarsofwa.com/.  The only thing missing will be the animals themselves. 

 Buzz at 2 months

Speaking of which this is the month Buzz and Penny are being weaned- oh joy!  Fortunately the moms have been quiet during this process - not constantly calling to their crias.  We've also been lucky that the crias have been fairly quiet.  Buzz will be going to the bachelor herd and Penny will stay with the girls - we generally let the  moms wean the girls, but we move the boys.

Chloe, the goat, is still going strong in the milk department.  I just took a cheese making class and can't wait to make my next batch of cheese.  I've got provolone and Camembert aging in the frig - neither will be ready until January darn it!  We're going to be trying something new so stay tuned.

Heart of Dreams in December

This is a poncho I made using natural brown and black fiber and osnaburg fabric (kinda' like muslin, but a little bit heavier).  The alpaca shapes were cut from prefelts I made from the same fiber I used in

the poncho.  It's come in handy in some drafty venues I've been in since I finished it.  The best part is the fiber itself doesn't appear to shed.  Wearing black pants tends to tattle about any shedding that might happen - so far nothing.

I'm also doing snowmen for the season:

I'm going to track down different styles of camouflage for snow-people in different "sitautions" and there might even be a snow-smurf at some point.

This is a wall hanging I made for my niece and her fiance' for their wedding.  The "P" is in Microsoft's Parchment font and I needle felted it onto a white prefelt background.  The is another laminate like the poncho - one side had the black border with white and hints of turquoise in the middle, then the osnaburg and finally the design itself.

This is the "P" in more detail and after it's been felted a bit.

Ultimately I think I fulled it a bit too much and because the letter had that little bit more fiber it definitely fulled more than the surrounding area.  It may not be a wall hanging anymore, but hopefully it's a good lap rug for the newlyweds.

And here are the fish - (the instructions are from Lori Flood, an amazing felter and teacher):

holiday show today

With less than two hours to go I've decided to update the blog.  It's that or keep spinning with my Hansen e-spinner and listen to my book "on tablet".  The blog won out.

I was about to start kvetching about once again not selling anything, but a customer just bought a shawl I made (spun, plied, knitted by me).  It looked absolutely gorgeous on her - and I bet you're wondering why I don't have a picture posted.  I did take one, honest, but I forgot to save it!!  I doubt I have one in my files, but I'm going to look.

I've gotten some ideas from my fellow vendors.  One lady recommended making kid versions of a poncho I'm wearing (I'll upload a pic later).  Another lady gave me the idea to needle felt small dogs so people can have their own vanity pooch without all the bother and must have accessories.  If nothing else the results should be amusing.

All in all it's been a fairly quiet holiday show.  We're going to check into two shows/fairs in Lake Forest Park and we still have the Duvall show on the third.  So there's still time to get your alpaca fix - including scheduling a tour or felting class.

So this was a quickie update, but at least I got it done.

it's been over a year - oops

since my last post - ouch!

So much has happened - first, I finally finsihed the salmon pillow.  At least one side anyway.  I had to stop at that point because the price of the pillow was only going up.  Besides, you can only see one side at a time anyway.  I also found an outlet for my failed scarves - using them in the pillows and hats.  I can also use the circles I cut out of the berets for the "head hole" - at least I will eventually.

We also decided to do something about camelid rescue this year - an endeavor we had considered for a while.  This was also a subject I had brought up with the local alpaca association many years ago.  I had thought that if all the member farms put a line item on their yearly budgets to donate $10 to one of the local rescues would show our commitement to the health and welfare of the animals in our industry.  At this point, many years later, there are still no significant efforts from any of the local camelid associations regarding this situation.

Hence us doing what we can do to help.  We're affiliated with Cross Creek Alpaca Rescue and we work with Rebecca of 11th Hour Animal Rescue and Sanctuary.  So far we've placed 29 out of 35 animals.  I wish I could claim some credit, but it's all been Rebecca finding the homes - pretty amazing!

In addition to the alpacas and fiber work, rescue (and the day jobs) we added two goats to the farm.  Chloe is a mini-Oberhasli and her buddy is Gary a mini-Nubian wether.  We get about a quart of milk from Chloe a day and when we come up with a gallon I get to try and make cheese, or put it in the freezer to try later.  So far I've made fromage blanc (literally "white cheese" in french) and chevre (goat in french).  I'm now looking at local cheese making classes because I want to try and make other kinds of cheeses like cheddar, brie and even blue cheese.  But we will have raw goat's milk for visitors to try and cheese whenever it's available.

We've also decided to increase our online presence via this blog, the farm's facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Heart-of-Dreams-Alpacas/67590344191) as well as our website (www.heartofdreamsalpacas.biz).  We're going to set up our store on the website, but we'll only be accepting cash, check and paypal.  Once the payment clears we'll ship the order.  At least that's our thought for now.  We'll also be looking at etsy, openherd and other websites to drive business to our store.  We're hoping that next year we'll be able to stay closer to home, do the higher end shows and festivals with the bulk of our sales coming from online.

So welcome to the Wilmot's new adventure and Happy Holidays!

Latest endeavour - pillows

This is a Tlingit salmon.  I've been carrying the picture this is based on for years wating to be brave enough to attempt it either as a flat piece or in this case as a pillow.  It wasn't until I had finished making the pillow form and starting on the design details that I realized I messed up the tail - I left off the actual tail fin.  So now I get to figure that out in addition to deciding if I'm going to put the designs on the reverse side (I already did the mouth, but nothing else).  I also have to decide if I'm going to extend the mouth a bit.  But it's definitely a start.

Been busy busy

We're solidly in our home once again, most of the boxes have been emptied (or hidden in the garage).  We made it through shearing 2010 and now I've got almost two full season's worth of fiber to work through, plus a bunch I got from a neighboring farm.  Of course now that I've been focusing on the natural colors people are going crazy for my dyed fiber!

Let's see - the latest news was I was a vendor at my first festival - Coupeville Art Festival.  For the month prior to The Weekend Tim started doing the Redmond Market - I'd open and then he'd come in around 10am or so to finish the day.  He's a natural salesman and of course the ladies love to listen to him go on.  I'll definitely get pictures of the man at work at the next market.

Anyway, I was working to make as many laminate scarves as possible - hand dyed silk blended with alpaca.  Even the ones I had to redo a bit turned out well - I thought anyway.  My favorite was a simple blue silk with black alpaca.  I thought it would be the first item to sell when the Festival opened.  Needless to say it didn't.  Sadly we didn't do as well as I had hoped that weekend and I have to say that the 90 degree weather didn't help.  The lady in the booth across the way as a hoot so all in all I had fun, but I doubt we'll do a festival in summer again, unless my non-seasonal items do well.

I've also decided I need to revamp the booth layout, again.  I'm going to get hooks that allow the scarves to drape better and have something for the hats and purses. 

I've been going through Pat Spark's book, "Making Faces" and I'm putting the finishing touches on the moon I made.  I've got the cheeks and teeth to do to try and make it not so frightening, but it's almost done.  It's so soft and my next one will be better - I hope.  But this is part of what I'm calling non-seasonal.  I'm also working on more flowers and small animals.  I'm out of all of them so I think I may be on the right track.