Another Alpaca!

I really love the colors on this one.  In my shop now!  (SOLD)

and speaking of that couch, look who else thinks he gets to sleep there:

Powder Blue Alpaca

Ok, now I’m just in love with making these.  I finalized the pattern and I can do the head, neck, and chest in 1 day.  The body takes a few days and the legs 2 days but it feels a lot faster. I would really like to try one in a 2 yarn, but I am tempted to use one of my Lion Brand Mandalas and make a colorway alpaca! Maybe next one!

In my shop now!  

How Long?

Alright so I decided to make a powder blue alpaca after I said I wouldn’t make any more for a while.  As much as I’ve revised the pattern I decided to rename it “Best in Show Alpaca”.  I got to watching alpaca and llama videos and alpacas are just cuter.  At this point it’s a new pattern.  I scaled down the face, the head, the ears, the neck, the chest and therefore the body, and revised the legs.  I’ve also never done the original blanket because I took one look at that and said yeah nope.  So far I’ve made a simple granny square blanket, a virus blanket, and one of my own creation using front and back posts.  Oh, and different yarn, I am loving Caron Simply Soft for this!

All that being said, someone had asked me how long these take.  If I work on it every day, it takes a little over a week.  I never realized how much time it tasks until I literally timed making a leg.  Making 1 leg, stuffing it, sewing in the ends,  and sewing it to the body clocked in at an hour.  Just 1 leg.  Times 4 obviously, 4 hours to do just the legs.  I haven’t timed the head and the rest but I’d guess the body takes close to 6 hours.

Ooh! I also put together a cocoon cardigan but in a virus pattern.  I think it came out really well! I want to try another version where there are arm holes and sleeves but I will likely do that on xmas break. Someone has tn actual pattern for that but, I’ve made circular vests before, arm holes aren’t hard.

In my shop now!

Chiengora Alpaca

I’m taking a bit of a break from alpaca making but, this was for my youngest son who chose to have it made from the yarn made from our samoyeds fur.  It’s a bit more wobbly than the normal ones because the yarn is so soft and it was difficult to do a really tight stitch everywhere.

The yarn has a lovely halo though.  I’m going to save the fur when he blows his coat again next spring and probably have enough to get another 14 ounces or so.  This toy is also wearing our samoyeds puppy collar, and I used Caron Simply Soft in white for the feet.  I wanted something more durable for the bottom leg to make it more durable when standing on things.

ALL the Alpacas

Well, I decided to call this pattern alpaca since they are just cuter than llamas.  Llama IS more fun to say though, I think.  Here are the 4 I made not including the other pink one that sold.

And specifically the new minty one!

In my shop!

I am happy with the head reduction I did for the mint one, but I am going to further reduce the barrel body in roundness but add all but one of the fur rows back.  I like how it came out but the body is a touch too compact and it doesn’t balance the head as I would like.  I took the body stitch count from 60 down to 50 and now down to 45 on the one I’m making my youngest son.

Which, by the way, it coming along nicely.  I made a cheingora cake of samoyed fur today and using that for the alpaca.