I was SO HAPPY when I opened my box of alpaca this afternoon. I wanted to dive in and swim around in it, like Scrooge McDuck in his gold coins. It's so clean I almost feel like I could dye & spin it right out of the box, but I'm giving it all a quick soak just in case. I found a giant blue bucket at Lowe's for $7 and I made some drying screens out of some crummy old paintings. I just ripped the canvas off and re-covered the wood frames with a roll of nylon screen and a staple gun. I made 2 of them so I could clamp them back-to-back and the thickness of the wood creates a little pocket to keep the fiber from blowing away.

I carded the horse hair with some variegated swampy-green merino this afternoon and will hopefully spin it tonight or tomorrow. It is SO MUCH LIKE HUMAN HAIR! Seeing it caught up in my carder reminded me of the vacuum cleaner brush as I cut out all my hair that's tangled down there making it smell burny. (Is everyone as nauseous as me now? Yeah, you're welcome.) But seriously, folks, I have faith that there will be others who, like me, have a Tim Burtonesque appreciation for the weird. SOMEONE, somewhere out there, will see this yarn and say, "I love that! I will knit it into a creepy something and love it forever!" Just look at the batt! Can't you just hear it glorrrppp-ing out from the depths of a bog and smothering you in your sleep? Or possibly just causing you a mild inconvenience like having to call a plumber to remove it from your drain?