Slightly frantic here as we attempt to get ready for the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. John Arbon goes up first tonight and sets up the stand on Wednesday. We keep well away until Wednesday afternoon as JA has strong views on stands and there is no point in falling over each other and having to undo something because he doesn’t like it. My printer has been going non stop printing out UK Alpaca wholesale and retail order forms and stuff for the alpaca sock yarn.
The stand is built from scratch using metal grids so it takes a while and means that we go up there with John’s van stuffed full and our big car as well – more alpaca yarns than you can shake a stick at. It is complicated by the fact that John and Juliet have sold the lease of their shop in Lynton and are moving all the stock and fittings into their already full house. They are taking over the shop at Coldharbour Mill and all will be going there eventually once that shop has been refurbished – as you can imagine they are both VERY tired.
Our Andrew and Nella have been forced to join in and they have been making up the new sock yarn shade cards – only 200 so not too bad – and putting bellybands on the hanks of sock yarn in their spare time in the evenings – ho ho. We are hoping this will be successful as sock knitting seems to be all the rage at the moment and we are using the coarse alpaca fibre in this yarn. We need to find a profitable use for the coarse and we need to move a lot of it. We have around two and a half tons of coarse fibre in storage that we have paid for – dead money.
On the alpaca birthing front I was hoping the two girls who are overdue would pop before we go but it looks unlikely now. Maybe they will wait until I get back on Monday. There are seven others who have moved up to the field behind the house who are due between November and February – the stragglers! They will get plenty of feed and attention to make sure they and their unborn babies are in the best condition possible. We have never had any particular problems with winter births as we have a big barn that we can bang them up in if we have very wet weather and a freezer full of plasma.