extra pics

Here are the rest of the pics that I couldn't get blogger to upload this morning.

First another pic of Gracie, 'cos she's such a cutie.

This is a picture of the beginning of our spinning of the merino roving from alpaca spinner. You can see on the right of the picture my solution to the missing tensioner on the wheel. Yup a wooden spoon, perfect fit!

On the subject of merino wool, this merino is from new Zealand, we're trying to avoid buying Australian Merino having heard about the practice of Mulesing the sheep which they do in Australia to prevent fly strike. I had a discussion with Linzi about this, she had not heard of the practice. I have tried to find information which isn't OTT in either direction about this and came up with this link to the Western Australia Agriculture Department . Other info was either from the Australian wool marketing board or animal rights campaigners. This gives a description of the practice without glossing over (marketing board) or shock horror (PETA). You can draw your own conclusions.

I'm not sentimental about animals and I'm aware of how disgusting and painful fly strike on sheep is, it's a tricky situation.

Finally a picture of KIP (Knitting in public). this is me getting on with my cardi before kick of at Welford Road, home ground of Leicester Tigers, on Friday night. This was probably the best part of the evening. The game was a bad tempered affair ending in an unsatisfactoy draw. Two players sin binned and two sent off (one of each from each team)