Blog - Westsongs

I won a prize!

Handspun handwoven pure alpaca baby blanket — Baby blanket made from 100% Olive – 23″ by 48″ White Swedish Lace. It came first!

Actually I won three! I’m so excited and surprised by it that it has got me back onto our sadly neglected blog so I can share it with the world.

Handspun pure alpaca Huacaya Suri blend — It looks just like any old skein of wool, but it is more than that to me! It is 80% Walter (for his lustre, fineness and creamy colour) and 20% Olive (for her crimp and whiteness). The combination gives the yarn strength and a lovely colour depth

Swedish Lace Pure Alpaca Handspun Handwoven blanket — Swedish Lace is a favourite weaving pattern of mine – it has a very ‘blanketty’ feel about it and is ideal for alpaca which can be overwhelmingly warm in a dense weave structure. The little holes make the structure loose, light and airy. This particular blanket is incredibly soft and cosy as I chose my softest fluffiest yarns!

Susan from Alpacas of Wales encouraged me to enter the British Alpaca Futurity’s Fibre Craft competition – its for anybody who makes things out of alpaca fibre, so … spinners and weavers like us here at Pistyll Gwyn and also knitters, felters, crocheters, and dyers … I entered some yarn in the handspun category and a baby blanket in the handspun handwoven category.
Susan rang yesterday morning from the Birmingham NEC to tell me that my yarn had got second place in its category and my blanket had got first place in its category and also first place in the whole Fibre Craft competition. I was well chuffed!
The Alpaca Futurity show is one of the UK’s largest annual alpaca events and is a celebration all things alpaca. Although the main focus is on the animals themselves there is ever more space being given to fibre artists and crafts people to display their wares and show their skills.
Next year, hopefully, we should be in a position to attend ourselves and have a stall. I certainly feel a bit more encouraged and inspired!

Olive becomes a mum – it’s a boy!

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Well, we’re dead proud of our Olive. She was the first alpaca born here at Pistyll Gwyn, and last year we mated her with Dylan, who was born here a couple of months after her.

Her first cria arrived yesterday, in typical alpaca style – no fuss, lots of interest from the rest of the herd, and everything carrying on as normal within a few hours.

He is a gorgeous light fawn colour, but as yet has no name …

Dreamcatcher and Tomas go home

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Dreamcatcher and Tomos head home to Alpacas of Wales with Sue Myerscough

Well, after an extended stay here at Pistyll Gwyn, Susan’s two lads, Dreamcatcher and Tomas have gone back home to Alpacas of Wales, 16 miles further into deepest West Wales.

From their point of view, I reckon they’ve had a great time – the chance to hang out (and more) with some lovely alpaca gals, lots of space, comfy field shelters and water troughs to climb into.

For us it has been a partial success. Dreamcatcher, who is an old hand at all this, got straight down to business with Lavender, who also knows her way around the mating pen, but poor old Tomas and Molly – they certainly didn’t turn out to be love’s young dream! After much fumbling and falling about we gave it up as a bad job – Tomas just wasn’t assertive enough, and despite spending the whole winter flirting outrageously, our Molly just didn’t want to go down.

So Tomas goes back to get a bit more experience with the local girls, and we’ll give Molly a bit more time. Maybe next month …

So now, we just sit back and wait for Lavender to do her stuff. In the meantime, the Diamond Clan aren’t too far off, so new cria shortly! Watch this space …

I am the buttercup-grazing alpaca

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Not really, but seeing as the real alpacas don’t eat them – a good thing as they are poisonous – we do need some way to keep them in check.

It’s never been as issue before this year, but as everything else around them does get eaten, they are flourishing …

So … at one end of the farming spectrum there are tractors, herbicides, sprays, soil analysis, government grants and mountains of red tape, and at the other end there is me, bimbling about the paddock on a summers morning, reaching into the cool dew to pull up the unwanted flowers, surrounded by alpacas and occasionally throwing a stick for Gwen.

I’m sure my neighbours think I’m mad, and when I look at my bank balance I’m inclined to agree, but as I move from one buttercup to the next …. hmmmm …. that one there …. and this one ….. oops nearly missed this one … I really don’t care whether I am or not!

I am the buttercup-grazing alpaca!

The first bracken harvest

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Hurrah! The first bracken harvest is done.

A little late, but I always say that. At least our newly planted coppices, lower and upper, have been cleared so the young trees can actually see some sunlight.
Not for long though – the one thing with bracken is it is so relentless. It will soon be time to start again …

It’s a good thing I enjoy it, I suppose. Another early morning job for me: everything is waking up, the air ranges from slightly damp to welsh sodden. It always feels good and reminds me why I am here.

Once it is picked, it is a bit more laborious – carting it across the hillside in a wheelbarrow to the barn, and then shredding it. I have a n electric shredder for that – all mod cons.

Finally, it is bagged up and sits in a pile waiting to be mixed in with the waste alpaca fleece, and alpaca poo … and from there, it is magically transformed into amazing compost!

How satisfying. Meanwhile the second crop is just about ready to be pulled, … just time for a few buttercups and brambles in between …