When we last left our intrepid heroine (me,) I was at the Florida Alpaca

Breeders Show in Jacksonville and I was on the prowl for a few nice alpaca

rovings or alpaca fleeces to add to my personal stash. I was dumbfounded to

learn that there was no fleece show in conjunction with this large halter

show! Apparently this group has a separate fleece show -in August! - in Florida!

- not even going to say more on that point.


I saw 1 person who was selling "roving" that was not blanket quality (in my
opinion,) far too many alpaca "BREEDERS" who had no fleece or roving to show or sell and 1 person who had many luscious rovings and yarns on display but he/ she was never around to sell one, and I checked,


a LOT of times!





Marathon Alpacas rovings for sale? - a cruel hoax!




So I started wah wah wah-ing to various people that there were no rovings /

fleeces and poor, already overworked, Jamie Flores - one of the show's

organizers - told me that she HAD rovings there but had been too busy to

bring them out and sell them. Dunh dunh dunh (melodramatic climactic plot

moment music.)


Well, of course I wanted to see all of them and Jamie

obligingly brought some over. They were GORGEOUS! And, are you reading

this alpaca BREEDERS?!, as soon as I started pawing through them, fleece

buyers appeared in my litte booth area as if by magic. "Are you buying this

one?" "Do you want ALL of that?" I fought the urge to drive the jackals off

of my fresh fleece kill for Jamie's sake, but it wasn't easy to quell my

inner fleece demon.



I ended up buying around 3 lbs. of a Suri / Huacaya mix with beautiful sheen, excellent hand and great length. This roving was spectacular and.....MINE!





Suri alpaca roving




I forced myselt not to buy a superfine caramel colored huacaya fleece but it

was bought by the women who had the vendor booth next to mine. Then there

was the pretty gray fleece ....




If YOU, dear reader are needing some of these rovings, here is the contact

info. for Jamie. Happy fleece hunting. Tell her Kate sent you.


Jamie Flores Sh'iloh Alpacas


Jamie's Website



But, speaking of the lady whose booth was next to mine, her name is Lorie,
and her business is called A Fuzzy Farm. She was selling those PVC Babe Wheels and had the largest Babe wheel I've ever seen, with a HUGE bobbin and an attached skein winder. Pretty cool!, but I can't warm up to the plastic wheels for some reason.




Babe spinning wheel with skein winder



She also had a triangle loom and people were pretty interested in watching

her weave on it. She had a good crowd watching her warp the loom.




triangle shawl loom




So, after we bought some of Jamie's rovings, Lorie and I weighed and sold

the rest of them right there in front of our booths. See Florida people;

That's how you sell fleece!, right next to the people who are weighing it and

spinning it. Here's Lorie and I weighing a fleece for a customer:





selling alpaca fleece




And here I am spinning on my lucky, alpaca-themed Kiwi spinning wheel. Note

that I am wearing a red vest made of ? That's right, NOT polartec but

alpaca in the above photo and an alpaca cardigan in the photo below. OK the

blue jean jacket is not alpaca but it truly WAS colder than I thought inside

of this building.




me handspinning on alpaca wheel





There were many vendors at this show but this is the one that impressed

me the most:




needle felting goddess






Neotique felted art by Andrea Wilhite. Andrea does not have a website but I

can link to her felting photo gallery on MySpace - You don't have to be a

member of MySpace to see this.


Andrea's felting on MySpace



If this gal was living in Vermont or somewhere more "Felty", she'd be so busy

giving classes and winning prizes that she'd have no time to even BE on

MySpace! Here's a photo of some of the artistic felted objects she brought

to the show:





needle felted objets d'art - awesome!





Hey, Andrea, if I had met you while I still lived in Maryland, I'd have told

you to mail me one of these babies to enter in the Maryland Sheep and Wool

Festival's Fine Arts contest. Don't you know someone arty in MD or VA or DC

who could enter these?





Also sharing the hallway with us was a new alpaca social networking website

called, appropriately, "AlpacaSocial."



Alpaca Social Website




They were signing up new members at the show and also live blogging. Yay! Others of my own kind to interact with. It's so tiresome to hang out with people who hate their computers and think Facebook is the reason children can't spell or have no manners or whatever. Of course I joined right up and then I started my own group in Alpaca Social for alpaca people who also belong to Ravelry.


If you've never heard of Ravelry, get the March copy of Camelid

Quarterly. I"ll have an article in there explaining Ravelry, which is like

Facebook or MySpace for knitters and fiber-arts people.





alpaca social signups at FABA show





Every now and again, I'd get tired of hand spinning and blabbing about our alpaca care DVD, and I'd take a stroll into the show ring area to check things out inside. One of the biggest surprises at this alpaca show in Florida was that I saw a bunch of people I knew from the Eastern Alpaca Jubilee in Pennsylvania including this group of heavy hitters from Ohio and New Jersey. Ask anyone who's been in the alpaca biz for more than 6 months, and they'll recognize this group.





the usual suspects






They were good sports about participating in some kind of skit, but I didn't

watch it. I hate skits! I know it's wrong, and bad, and I hate cartoons

too. I usually try to keep these shameful facts to myself.

Skits aside, I was SO impressed with this show and how well run it was.


They had an excellent live auction. I was not tempted to buy a new alpaca

but there was one creature at the auction that I desperately wanted to bid on.


"Crimson Tide" was donated by alpacamagicusa.com. Is there someone reading this who DOESN'T want a mini donkey?! Because look how cute it is!





mini donkey that should have been mine




And, it came right over for me to scratch it on the back and neck! This

little guy would EASILY fit inside the Suburban - no trailer needed. But,

then he might get lonely out in the field all by himself. So I would need

to give him someone to hang out with. Like, this little guy - who's had

enough of the alpaca show and just wants to go home to my backyard.





tired alpaca baby at show





or This guy because he's so teddy bear-ish.





alpaca teddy fleeced





But, then I remember that Florida is pretty hot for Huacayas so maybe this alpaca, with the fleece that's almost lilac colored - for heaven's sake!!! - should go home with me. For the donkey Crimson Tide's sake, NOT for any selfish reasons of my own!





lilac colored suri alpaca






I swear! I did not alter this photo! That's the real color. I'd love to buy a roving from THAT fleece!


In between my bouts of animal coveting, I stared at the clothing of the

others inside the equestrian center. This is a terrible habit that I

believe to be a shameful side effect of too much hand spinning and knitting.



You start to wonder what someone else's sweater is made from, then you're

sidling over to get a closer look and, - slippery slope folks! - next thing

you know, you're reaching out to touch some stranger's clothing. Unluckily

for me, or luckily, as the case may be, there was very little hand made

clothing at this show, but here is one man that I stalked for several minutes,





alpaca hat stalking





When I took the above photo, all I was seeing was the hat but, after taking

it off my camera card to Photoshop it, I suddenly saw the strange fleece on

the alpaca standing to hat guy's left. It is me, or is there something very

unnatural about that fleece!?



Either the alpaca's been coated or the blanket has been shorn pretty recently, like, right before the show?



In an effort not to identify, and/or offend anyone, I did Photoshop out the people who were showing this animal, but I did nothing to alter the look or color of the alpacas in this photo! Look at the back legs.




When hat guy caught me staring at him, I finally just admitted that it was

the hat I wanted to examine. Better to be thought of as a fiber junkie than

a "cougar" I always say. If you don't know that term (cougar) it's like

dirty old man but refers to women and younger guys. Not that this guy was

THAT much younger than me, and he was cute but the hat was all I could see.

Really!





crocheted alpaca hat





2 colors of hand spun alpaca and it's crocheted! I have never thought to crochet an alpaca hat but I loved the way the stitches looked on the hat.

I just may have to make one myself.


Bret Jesse (hat owner) not only (graciously) allowed me to photograph his

hat, he offered me a seat at his table and we had a glass of wine together.


He WAS sort of cute in that hat!


However, it turns out that his WIFE has the same name as my daughter.

So Bret and Cassandra Jesse of Moontide Alpacas in Clermont, Florida, if you had a website, I would have linked to it just now!



Then, as if it was not bad enough to be wandering around in a frenzy of desire -

wanting every animal I saw, there was also a really good silent auction

at this show, with everything from alpaca socks to computer printers and

weekend getaways and, of course, alpaca care DVDs.


All of these items were donated as a fundraiser for the show. So, doing my

part, I bid on a few items, and got the only 2 things that I desperately

wanted, alpaca and horse jewelry!





hand made, glass alpaca charm w/ earrings






hand made, glass horse charm




These are hand made by Holly Hartman Williams at Lardworks Studio in

Georgia. She is a lamp worker. Apparently "lamp working" is what you call winding glass objects with a torch instead of blowing glass. Holly is also into alpaca felting - a girl after my own heart!

I kind of want both of these beautiful charms, but I will be good and give

the horse to my niece (also a horsey-lovin' girl) for her 16th birthday in

May. Shhhhhhhh - don't tell her!


Ever feel like you've been blathering on and on and your kids are going to

expect something for dinner soon? Yeah, I have to stop gushing about the

Florida Alpaca Breeders show, but I still have a few more photos. Hey, wait,

what's that saying about a photo being worth.....something or other?







Another combo of my favorite things - Star Trek & alpacas!!!







very professional apres-showring photo set up at the show







small brown Suri with my name on it







furry alpaca faces are one thing I miss very much



2 of my favorite entries in the "What do you make with your alpaca?" contest at the show.





woven alpaca throw





alpaca lace shawl




Whew! I HAVE to stop now, BUT.... I know I never finished a previous

post about my old neighbor in MD and her pregnant Icelandic horse and that's

been bugging me for awhile so, if anyone out there in blog land wondered,

here is the baby:




icelandic horse baby










To all of the organizers and workers who put on the Florida Alpaca Breeders

Show 2009 - thank you! You did a super job.