First, here’s a look at the silk scarf (or belt or hairband or however the recipient wants to use it) which I entered in the Berkshire Guild Challenge. The theme this year was “Nature’s Colour Palette”. We got the results at today’s meeting. Mine didn’t get a prize, but that’s fine by me as there were 15 entries, all of them very good, and I loved the prizewinners.

Technical details: warp – 16/2 silk dyed with acid dyes, weft – Gutermann’s sewing silk, plain weave. It was sett to make it very drapey, but I think it may have ended up too sleazy and unstable. The judge didn’t say that, though, so perhaps it isn’t too bad after all.

After the meeting, we took a friend home. While we were there we got some photos of the blue tit nestlings being raised in an old cylinder vacuum cleaner ouside her house. It seems that the hole where the hose went is just the right size for the adult tits.

She keeps silkworms, and we had a look at her current ‘crop’. She doesn’t have any live moths at the moment, but she has some beautiful dead ones for display at demonstrations. She does have a lot of larvae at the moment, though. Moth-phobics are advised not to read on. :-)
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Yesterday, we played hookey from packing to visit the guild Dyeing Day, held at a member’s home. Our excuse was that we needed to meet up with some of the others involved in the Roman demo. While we were there, we got cuddly with some of her beautiful guanacos (members of the llama/alpaca family with wonderfully fine spinnable coats, only 18 microns thick).

Unfortunately the camera batteries ran out before they came across to make friends, but here are the best of what we did get. Click on the thumbnails for full-size versions, as usual, and use your browser back button to return here.

First, the boss of the herd .. well he thinks he is, anyway, and the third picture shows him about to spit at the upstart collie who was teasing him from outside the fence.

One of the breeding females. Rys thought she was going to spit at me, but she was actually very friendly.

… and another female …

… but my favourites were the crias (the youngsters). Two were particularly friendly. They cuddled and snuggled and rested their heads on our shoulders, and breathed in our faces (no, not ugh … lovely sweet breath) and tried to suck our T-shirts and … well, they were just adorable.

Unfortunately, one of the friendly crias is a male, and his lack of fear and espect would make him dangerous as an adult male, so he will have ‘the snip’ in a couple more months.