Fiber Arts Friday ~ Alpaca boys go on summer vacation

Yep, that's right, nine of our boys have gone back this year to Mar-Rita Farms for loads of summer  fun. 

Last year our friend Rita asked if we would be willing to bring some of our boys to her farm for the summer.   Rita used to raise corridale sheep and has lovely pastures that she would have to mow unless she found some animals to keep it grazed. 

No grass, just mud thanks to all the rain this year.

On our farm, we have very little pasture and what we have goes to the girls.  This leaves the boys out in the cold as far as grass is concerned.  So believe me it didn't take us long to say YES.  Rita enjoyed having the boys so much she asked if they could come back this year.  What a win, win situation for everyone.

So this Wednesday we got the boys around for their summer vacation. 


You can't tell me animals aren't smart.  They knew as soon as Jim pulled the trailer up to the barn something was up.   Look at Johnny Cash taking his last look at the girls before heading out.


Here's pic's of  Mar Rita Farms. It is such a beautiful location and Rita even has her own farm store.  Look at all that grass!  

So on Thursday morning as I was looking out of our family room this is what I saw.  Not the lovely pastures at Mar-Rita's but a birds eye view of our beautiful woods.  The different colors of green were stunning first thing in the morning and inspired me to do some dying. 

I have some yarn that I had made that I'm not so crazy about.  I dyed some merino a teal color and wanted it mixed with some brown.  I wanted it to be more teal than brown but the mill and I had a communication problem and they added to much brown.  The yarn turned out to be an usual oatmeal brown color.  So I decided to over dye it to see what would happen. 

The picture on the left shows the oatmeal brown yarn that I over dyed using a hot pink color.  It came out a really nice light raspberry color.  So I thought what would happen if I used my raspberry dye...... it turned out a really rich darker raspberry color shown in the picture on the right.  What fun, the two colors would be wonderful used together. 

raspberry and hot pink

Then I thought I'd try a green since it was the green of our woods that inspired me to try over dying in the first place.

I used emerald dye and the yarn turned out to be a really deep emerald color.  It is truly stunning. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Now I may have to find a project that I can use all the colors along with the oatmeal brown I started out with.

So tomorrow I my try some different colors ....  Aztec Gold, Brilliant Blue or Key Lime.  Any suggestions?

Wishing everyone a Happy Fiber Arts Friday!!!!