Knit Sisters

While walking Hugo this Saturday morning, I saw what I at first took to be a horse trailer parked downtown.  Of course, Hugo, with his super-sensitive nose, knew better at once–these were no horses, these were alpacas!  I immediately scouted out these alpaca people, (who were sitting on some benches around the courthouse) and asked somewhat lamely, “Are some of you the alpaca people?”  Of course, they were very nice about it and didn’t even poke fun at me for my dumb question.  Turns out, there were not one but three groups of alpaca people:  two groups who own alpaca farms in Kansas, and one group who owns a fiber shop and fiber mill in Kansas.  They were all there for the county fair shindig going on around the square on Saturday.  They had live animals, fiber, yarn, and other fiber-related goodies.

Well!  What could I do but invite myself to come sit and spin with them that afternoon?  So, at about 1:00 p.m. I trundled myself up to the square and horned in on Kay and Sally, two sisters (!!) who run a fiber shop in Phillipsburg, KS.  I took the Joy with me:

 

Kay was spinning up some alpaca on her Kromski Mazurka wheel, so I happily sat down beside her and set up shop, so to speak.  Her sister, Sally, was warping a small Kromski table loom in preparation for weaving a scarf.  They graciously let me join them and even more graciously treated me as though I were an old friend.  We all sat and chatted for about an hour, and then, off to the west, some very threatening storm clouds started to blow in.  Kay and I moved in under their tent.  It started to rain.  It started to blow.  Then it started to thunder, lightning, and pour.

Soon, Kay, Sally, and I were involved in Operation “Save the Alpaca Fiber.”  We frantically threw books in their truck, tossed skeins of yarn into bins, and bundled up beautiful woven and knitted alpaca goods, all the while trying to hold onto the tent, which was threatening to blow away in the wind.  Eventually, the tent did blow away, right into the nearest store front.

Well, we did get everything packed up into their truck, more or less safely, although not before we were all absolutely soaking wet.  Actually, I think we all gave up on the idea of staying dry pretty early on.  (At least I know I did.)  The phrase “soaking wet,” doesn’t really convey how wet we were.  Sopping, sloshy, drenched, down-to-the-underwear wet comes closer.

I invited Kay and Sally to come back to my house to dry off a bit before heading home.  (It was the least I could do after having invited myself to their party…)  They towelled off as best they could and I gave them a couple of old t-shirts.  Here they are, standing in my kitchen, still smiling after everything.

 

(That’s Kay on the left and Sally on the right.)

You know what the worst part of the whole day was?  I didn’t even get a chance to purchase any of their lovely alpaca roving before the storm blew in.  Sorry, ladies!  But, at the risk of sounding sappy, I now have two new fiber friends.  Thanks for the adventure, Kay and Sally!

In other weekend news, I finished this skein of mohair/wool:

More mohair news on Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Spinning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.