Adultery with Alpaca

I took a leave of absence while my dear mama was in town to celebrate birthday week which means that I have returned with many exciting things to share. First, I got some pretty great presents for my birthday including an Ashford rigid heddle loom. We spent hours putting it together and warping it for the first time.

After hearing me on the verge of murder numerous times, my mom finally learned the horrors that result from a skein of tangled DK two-ply alpaca and spent many more hours after the warping was done trying to do surgery on what was left of it with help from two of the cats. I tried convince her to abandon the tortured mess into the trash but she is very stubborn and also felt bad that she was in charge of the yarn when it got to be such a disaster. After one of the cats strung himself up like a marionette I was sure she was done with the whole thing but she perservered and I now have a whole bunch of little balls instead of one big knot. The carpet looks like I shaved some beast in here and the yarn is a bit chewed up, but she saved it.

So now in addition to stepping out on my old gal the knitting goddess with my crocheted monsters (I call that going to the dark side) I have something else to capture my attention. She does have to give me some credit. For a while there I was getting a little too into crochet and even considered making clothes and stuff with it. Now it's only for monsters (and the occasional handbag... oh and a rug.) One benefit to choosing such a difficult material for my first project is that I am already adept at troubleshooting and fixing mistakes. I was hoping to make a shawl and it's progressing really fast but I think I tied the ends off too long so who knows what the hell it is. Anyway, I will keep you all in the loop. Or weave. Or knot.