Long time no post! No new pictures this time (unless you want to see pictures of the new spindles I made yesterday). I have mostly been working to catch up with my block-of-the-month blocks from the Silver Thimble Quilt Shop. With last month's trip to Deborah's in Florida, and bringing home the alpacas, I kind of fell behind... I have now finished May's blocks, and I'm almost done with June's. Still have to finish July's before the next pick-up date (Aug. 7). I'm doing two blocks per month, hand-pieced.

Last weekend we visited a couple of local alpaca farms. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about my new critters, and the other alpaca people I've met so far have been wonderful. We visited with Sandy Bradley of Brae Lea Alpaca Farm, and Lorrie and Peter at Folsom Farm. We got to see very young crias (baby alpacas) romping, learned quite a bit, and were made to feel very welcome. This weekend we're planning to visit Carol Karsten of Hidden Hill Farm, who does things on a larger scale than the farms we've visited so far.

Today I'm mailing a box of assorted fibers off to Wooly Knob Fiber Mill. This was a blend I started doing myself on my Mark V drum carder - all sorts of small lots of wool, class samples, bits and bobs. I decided I was never going to get the blend to be as homogenous as I'd like on my small carder, and that I need to send it out. (After that decision was made, it's only taken me about four months to get it boxed up and ready to mail.) These guys seem to have quite a good reputation and, from what I've seen, a much more reasonable pricing schedule than some. If I like what I get back, I have lots more that needs to be processed, including some wonderful fleeces from Mary Pratt in New York state, Georgia Wolterbeek in southern NH, and the 'paca fleeces I got when I picked up my critters.