Gorgeous Eyelash Novelty Yarn - Stunning!

Fruit Salad Eyelash Novelty Yarn - HandDyed and HandSpun!

Today I finally put the Jumbo Flyer on my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel and handspun some absolutely stunning eyelash novelty yarn. First I handdyed 100% domestic 56s wool roving in golds, burgundy and oranges. Then I kettle dyed some beautiful Border Leicester locks in the same colors. I listed these items in both my eBay and my etsy stores. When everything didn't sell, I pulled one roving and the remainder of the BL locks from inventory and decided to try my hand at spinning up an eyelash novelty yarn. First, I pulled the roving into long strips ready for spinning. Then, I hand picked the border leicester locks - some of them I hand picked completely open, some of them I hand picked into intact locks. I separated each of these types of locks into a different stack. Then I spun the roving into a singles and left it on the bobbin. Next, I spun the opened BL locks into a thick and thin, lumpy, bumpy singles and left it on the bobbin. Then I put the Jumbo Flyer onto the spinning wheel and started to ply the two singles. While plying them, I added the intact BL locks at an angle and let the ends flip and curl as they were encased into the plyed yarn. Then I wound off a 10 yard skein of this yarn and had an 11 yard skein remaining, which I skeined off, too. I'm posting photos of the resulting eyelash novelty yarn, along with photos of the roving and border leicesters locks in my Fruit Salad colorway. These two skeins of yarn are listed in my etsy store. I have plenty more fibers that I will ply and encase more locks to make additional 10 yard skeins of this gorgeous eyelash novelty yarn.

Making this yarn was an absolute blast!!! I am going to do more eyelash novelty yarns in the future. These yarns would be perfect for that special touch on a hand knitted or crocheted garment - Trim on a pair of gloves, a hat band for a felted wool hat (add buttons, shells, leather, beads, etc. for additional texture and interest), a neck band on a sweater, etc.

Let me know what you think of it!

Photos of Penstemon Flowers, Pikes Peak & Dome Rock

I wish the colors of the Penstemon had come out better on these photos. Photos just cannot do justice to how the field of flowers looks when you can view the entire thing in one frame! The lighting isn't the best as the photos were taken late afternoon. And the flowers took a beating from all the rain we've been getting lately. We had about 1/2 inch today, about an inch on Saturday, and 2.75 inches last Thursday! The flowers like the rain but the hail was a bit rough on them.

I don't know what the yellow flowers are - I just know the plants really stink and the llamas won't touch them. The llamas and horses won't eat the Penstemon either - which is great! Flowers that the animals don't eat - what a concept! Wish the deer could grasp that concept and leave my flower garden around the house alone! They always wait until the flowers are just ready to open up and then they eat them. I snagged the lone rose growing in the garden and brought it in the house in a little bud vase before the deer had a chance to gobble it down. I was so thrilled to see that a rose bush made it through the winter this year. I have tried for 10 years now to get a rose bush to grow here without success. I finally planted the rose in a sheltered location under a pine tree on the north side of the house, tucked into a little area just off the deck and stairs. And then after the first hard freeze I mulched it really good with a big pile of llama fleece that was too dirty and matted to use for anything else. Finally, a good use for those nasty llama fleeces that have been on the animal just a little too long! Unfortunately, clover has taken over the flower bed this year. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get rid of clover? I need to find out if it is poisonous or noxious or if I can safely feed it to my bunnies. The bees love the clover and it does smell nice but I would prefer the yarrow, clematis, rose bush and sweet william I planted in the bed!

The first photo is of Pikes Peak in the background. The second and third photos have Dome Rock in the background.

At any rate, enjoy the view!

Updated Cria Photos 7-23-07

Here are updated photos of our crias taken today 7-23-07. At top is Argentum, Mr. C (Chocolate Chip aka CUTE!) and Dusty Rose. Next is Mr. C, followed by Moonbeam, followed by Dusty Rose (front, then next photo is side), and last but certainly not least is Argentum.

Moonbeam has put on a lot of bone and has incredible crimp and wave in his fiber. These photos were taken after a rainstorm so the fiber is still damp.

Mr. C remains absolutely adorable - a 10 on the Cuteness scale for sure!

Dusty Rose is such a petite and feminine little thing. I wish you could see how beautifully silky her fiber is.

And Argentum - he really is an awesome young boy! Beautiful color, lots of presence and style, strong level topline, nice heavy bone structure - we wouldn't change a thing about him. He's on our roster for the showring next year!

Notice all the beautiful Penstemon flowers in the photos? I'm going to post flower photos in another blog post.

Enjoy!

Updated Cria Photos

As promised, here are updated cria photos taken Friday evening, July 13th. These little guys are growing like weeds! And they're as cute as the day they were born, actually probably even cuter. :o) Enjoy!

Top: Dusty Rose (L) and Moonbeam with Nimbus (our gelding babysitter)

Second: Mr. C (center) and Moonbeam (R)

Third: Moonbeam (L), Argentum (middle), Dusty Rose (R) - adult female to R is Diamond's Crown Jewel

Fourth: Moonbeam

Bottom: Dusty Rose

Photographing llamas is next to impossible in the field sometimes. When I squat down to take a photo, the llamas all come rushing up to see what I'm doing. The crias are fascinated with the camera and sometimes all I manage to get shots of is their little nose as it zooms in on the camera lens. If I wait long enough, they will eventually forget that I'm there and go off to graze or play and then I can get better photos, until I move and then they're back focused on me and the camera. I'll keep trying to get good photos of them to post.

Peacock Yarns

As promised, here are photos of the Peacock Custom Fiber Blend yarns, also shown with the alpaca/silk yarn in coordinating colors. This yarn has such wonderful drape and is silky soft. I am going to snag the last Peacock wool and silk rovings from my eBay and etsy stores so I can card more of this delightful blend up and spin more yarn. This will make an incredible shawl - with hopefully enough yarn to make fingerless mitts and maybe a spiral scarf.

Here's what is currently on the spinning wheel. I blended some custom dyed domestic 56s roving and some custom dyed tussah silk and blended them 50/50 on my Ashford hand crank drum carder to make this awesome batch of custom fiber blend (I named it Peacock - bright blue, turquoise, purple and teal), which I offered in my etsy store for a month and when no one bought it I pulled it and started to spin it. It spins like a dream and the resulting yarn is gorgeous! I'll take photos of the yarn in a day or so and get them posted. The yarn came out DK weight (a little over 1200 yards per pound). I still have a 1.7 oz roving of tussah silk in this same colorway that I'll probably pull and spin very thin to coordinate with this custom fiber blend yarn. I have some black/turquoise/teal alpaca/silk roving that coordinates very well with this colorway so I'll probably mix and match skeins to make a shawl of some sort - maybe a matching spiral crocheted scarf and some fingerless mitts if I have enough yarn.

Day Two for New Boy Crias

Our two little boys born yesterday, 6-16-07, are doing great. They are already running around the pasture playing with the two older crias, born 5-25-07 (Moonbeam) and 6-03-07 (Dusty Rose). Winona's little charcoal gray cria isn't quite as adventurous as Geni's little appaloosa boy but then Geni's little boy is 4 hours older. Here are some updated photos of the crias, taken early evening today, 6-17-07. Isn't the photo of Winona "kissing" her little boy cute?! Notice that Geni's little boy is already "grazing" with his momma.

I could sit for hours in the pasture with a camera, watching the crias play and the herd interact with each other, just waiting for the perfect shot. I hope you enjoy the photos I managed to get today!

I've posted an updated photo of Dusty Rose, too. She is two weeks old today.

Tune in again soon for updated photos of the babies.

Final Cria for Summer 2007 - Born 6-16-07

After taking the photos of the first cria born this morning and downloading them and posting them to this site, I went out to check on a second female who had looked like she might be in labor at the same time as the first female. When I got out to the pasture, there were two front legs and a head out. The baby got stuck at the hips so I helped to pull him and gently laid him down in the hay. Another beautiful charcoal gray cria sired by our Champion male, Tempis Fugit. These photos were taken a few hours after birth - both mom's and crias are resting - they have been shut into the small pasture right behind the house surrounded with no-climb mesh fencing for safety. Tomorrow we will turn the female herd and their crias out to the larger pasture. Watch for more photos to follow. Enjoy!

Another New Cria 6-16-07

Miss Congeniality, aka Geni, gave birth to a stunning male cria on June 16, 2007. This "little boy" weighed in at a whopping 30 pounds! Geni's first cria (born 20 months ago) weighed only 19 pounds. Average cria weight on the ranch is around 20 to 25 pounds. This boy was up within 15 minutes of his birth and the photos were taken within an hour of his birth. We think he is absolutely stunning. Another male to add to our show string next year! Enjoy!

Pronging

This is a clarification to a posting made earlier where we referred to "pronging". Pronging is where the animal "prongs" on all four legs rather than running. The motion looks like the animal is on springs - they spring up into the air and propel themselves forward at the same time. You have probably seen deer, antelope and gazelles prong. It is a way for prey animals to escape from predators without stretching out their legs, leaving tendons and ligaments vulnerable to the predator biting or clawing them to disable them.

New Crias (Baby Llamas)

Here are Midnight Moonbeam (white cria - center left) and Dusty Rose (creamy silver cria - center right) Moonbeam, aka The Beamer, was born on Friday May 25th. He is only 10 days older than Dusty Rose but look at the difference in size and posture. Once Dusty Rose completely "unfolds" she will look more like Moonbeam. She looks "dirty" but she is actually a very unusual creamy silver gray with peachy rose gray highlights.




Here is our newest addition to Split Rock Ranch. Dusty Rose was born Sunday, June 3, 2007. The above photo was taken when Dusty Rose was about 24 hours old. She is getting a llama kiss from her Aunt Jewell. The entire herd shares in caring for the crias - they will completely surround the cria when danger is sensed or perceived. Our older females will "prong" only when there are new babies - and then once they've taught the llama babies to prong, you generally will not see them prong again until there is another baby to teach.



We will post additional photos as these babies grow. We have two more crias due any day now so visit again to see more info.

Split Rock Ranch Stores

Here are the links to our on-line stores:

www.SplitRockRanch.etsy.com
www.stores.ebay.com/Split-Rock-Ranch
www.splitrockllamas.com

Welcome To Split Rock Ranch

Welcome to Split Rock Ranch! We are a small ranch located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of beautiful colorful Colorado where we breed, raise, train and sell llamas and fiber, handspun yarns, handpainted yarns, handdyed fibers and handmade items from natural fibers.

I decided to start a blog to share our daily adventures with others. There is so much that goes on daily on a working ranch and I want to let others experience life on a working llama ranch. I will post photos of llamas, fibers, yarns, finished handmade items, etc.

We have a web site where you can see all of our beautiful llamas. The URL is www.splitrockllamas.com. We sell our fibers through our website (a constant work in progress), through our eBay store and through our etsy store.

Please feel free to ask questions about the llamas and about our fibers and products. I am a handspinner, a knitter and a crocheter. I am also learning to weave on a triangle loom.

Check back often to catch up on the adventures at Split Rock Ranch!