I finished plying the Calico Creme roving a few days ago and skeined it up. Only today, did I realize I didn’t have a picture on the blog. That’s one day I could have had spinning content and didn’t.

Anyhow, here is the skein.

302 yards, 4.4 ounces of two-ply 100% alpaca, 100% handspun in a colorway called Calico Creme. The base fiber is from Drake which means it came from our herd.

A couple months ago, I finished a crocheted hat using the very fine yarn that was my traveling yarn as I moved from Oregon.

Since that time, I have been working on this scarf which is now complete.

The hat and scarf are crocheted from millspun alpaca using a size C (US) hook. The hat pattern has been discussed elsewhere but not pictured until today. The matching scarf is worked with four rows of double crochet followed by a row of dc-ch1-sk1. The next row consisted of four double-crochets worked every other ch1-space followed by rows of 2dc in each of the two center stitches of the fan. To reverse the process, I used a row of 2 edc decreases across the four fan stitches followed by a two-stitch chain to create an inverted fan. I then followed this with several rows of two edc decreases followed by two chain stitches to create more rows of inverted fans. I then worked my way back to a dc-ch1-sk1 pattern and eventually back to rows of double crochet for the border.

(If you have questions about the scarf pattern, please post a comment and I’ll try to be more specific about the pattern.)

It’s not perfectly symmetrical, but I like it. The pattern works well with the very fine yarn. It’s open enough not to be overwhelmingly hot, but closed enough to be quite warm.

I like the scarf. I’ll try the pattern – or a variant – again. The hat will work for some head sizes, but won’t work for everyone. I need to develop a one-size-fits-most hat pattern with a nice stretch brim that works with a variety of yarn sizes. For the most part, I like my current pattern, but the brims tend not to be stretchy so the hats fit only some head sizes.

My next project is to figure out what yarn to use with my new double-ended crochet hook. I’m planning to make a fairly wide, fairly open scarf – almost a wrap. I think I have the stitch pattern figured out in my head. I know I want to use two different colors of yarn. I don’t know which yarn I want to use and it is quite likely I’ll end up spinning something for the project.