One hundred and fifty grams of laceweight mid-fawn suri has just been started. The fleeces is from an animal called ‘Bartholomew’, one of the stud alpacas at Alpacas of Wales. The colour is beautiful: a subtle mixture of colours – mid fawns and blondes – gives the yarn a sandalwood-like appearance. So, ‘Sandalwood’ it is, in keeping with the recent wood inspirations. It just so happened that as I was admiring the colour, I looked up and noticed an old piece of sandalwood on the windowsill. I like it when that happens.

The other choice was a pale cream (classed as light fawn) from Silky, one of my suri boys:

I love spinning laceweight yarns. It’s just a shame that I don’t knit because if I did, I’d only spin laceweight. Ok, maybe 3-ply on occasion. The laceweights I spin are usually intended for weaving, although I kind of enjoy ‘chunkier’ woven artefacts because you can see the weave structure better and, of course, they spin and weave up much, much faster. So, as much as I enjoy spinning laceweights, they’ve tended to get postponed or ousted in favour of the redoubtable sportweight. And now, things have changed.

Recently, a Ravelry friend who specialises in knitted lace had been reading this blog, and messaged me to ask if I ever had any handspun laceweight available. After looking in awe at Bryony’s lace projects, I asked her if she’d like to try some out. It’d be a bit of a risk: I don’t knit, so I’m unable to test my laceweight yarns with the stresses of the lace knitting process – the finished artefact could snap and unravel during the eventual blocking out. Horror. However, she’s said she’s willing to take the risk, and I’m now in the process of planning the yarn. Laceweight suri is on the cards.