the lsb very kindly took me to visit my adopted alpaca marco yesterday (you can see him in the photo below, he's the brown one on the left with his head in the ear of another alpaca) i had a really great time and the journey to the farm and back yesterday gave me the chance to get the majority of my scarf finished which came off needles after lunch today.

anyway back to the alpacas, lsb and i got to walk a head collar trained alpaca before getting to meet marco who we adopted, who is a very strong creature made of pure muscle it seems given the amount of sheer force it took to catch him so we could stroke him etc. i'd say it was worth it though as he was so beautifully soft - being a suri alpaca he has fleece that grows in long ringlets that look almost like dreadlocks (which give him a very hippy like appearance) that are the softest thing i've ever felt.

i really can't believe how long it's been since i last made an entry, knitting has almost ground to a halt of late (with the exception of a very simple hat i finished last weekend, and some more of my latest scarf) with much of my focus having to go on far less fun things such as assignments, preparation for tutorials and just lectures in general (don't get me wrong, i love what i'm training to do, i just find the theory side of things so boring and much prefer learning practically on the wards) anyway this can only be a very quick update as i've very soon got to be prised off the doorframe kicking and screaming to the dentist and the usually rather unpleasant experience of going to the dentist is made even more unpleasant by the fact that lsb passed his cold onto me which as well as giving off all the usual signs and symptoms of a cold always seems to make my mouth red raw - wish me luck not biting the new dentist's fingers off when he catches the sore spots! will have to take some knitting with me to keep my hands busy in the waiting room, scarf or heel less socks, i wonder?

i'm so tired right now it really is unbelievable, and i'm only in uni three days a week now. i am so tired/busy/bogged down with work believe it or not that i have done hardly any knitting for about a week, so to make up for it here are some pictures.

the first few rows of another maya scarf, i love the wool, i just didn't want to repeat this pattern again but no pattern i could find seemed to suit the wool, colours either pooled or else they hid a pretty stitch pattern so i gave up and went back to this pattern instead. (and plus it sort of but not quite replaces the scarf i felted last week)

and a couple of pictures of my forest canopy shawl, i'm surprised by how quickly this has grown over the hours and the pattern's quite easy to remember or follow after a few repeats.

this is serious, i'm feeling absolutely distraught, today has not been a good day for me today and now i've just felted my scarf, a lovely scarf i put much effort into and in a favourite wool of mine (debbie bliss soho, shade 7) and i've just gone and felted it, by trying to be clever and put it in on the handwash wool cycle of my machine because my mother said it would be ok, the one time i listen to the advice of my mother and look where it gets me!

what i have learnt from the experience (as all nursing students are supposed to write this sort of thing after a critical incident and i'd say this was pretty critical, if not close on catastrophic) is that i should take time out of my studying when i get home to wash delicate knitted things by hand as having to scour the internet for replacement yarn and write up the incident on my blog probably takes about as much time (after i've picked myself up off the floor and stopped wailing at my now tarnished reputation which up until this point was that i had never (unintentionally) felted anything i had made). i have also learnt not to throw coffee down hand knitted scarves in the first place which is possibly the most important lesson of all.