Ben is a wonderful husband. Guess what he bought me for Christmas? A knitting workshop with Purl Alpaca 😀

I have knit several kits from Purl Alpaca and was thrilled to spend the day with Tracey,the Alpaca farming half of the business and Kari-Helene, the knitwear design half.

All the sample garments were arranged around the beautiful Barton village hall in Cambridgeshire.  We spent the first couple of hours trying on samples of the garments, “ohhing”at all the designs. The idea was to choose what we were going to knit that day but I definitely enjoyed playing dress up and prancing around “modelling”!

All though the day we were kept fed with Kari-Helene’s home made flapjacks and tea and coffee. Lunch was home made, vegetarian stroganoff followed by this, the most delicious chocolate cake with “drunken Blackberries” (steeped in gin!) 😛

So what did I eventually decide to knit? 5 balls of yarn were included in the course but, of course, I chose something that uses a lot more – I never seem to pick the little easy projects do I?

I went for the Venus Coat…

Ravelry link–>> Venus Coat

Purl Alpaca site Link–>> Venus Coat Kit

Here’s the official pattern photos…

The wonderful thing about this coat is it’s “swishiness”. As soon as I put it on I wanted to twirl and swish the skirt about like a little girl in her first party dress 😀

The only downside of this choice was casting on the 400+ stitches for the skirt (worked bottom up). While everyone else was storming through their garments, I only managed this much  on the day over my gazillion stitches…

As if all of that wasn’t enough – I have yet to tell you about the Alpacas 🙂

Before lunch we were able to walk down the lane (in wellies!) to visit the alpaca herd – they are beautiful creatures! Even in a cold, windy January day, in a muddy field , I was captivated.

Tracey was happy to explain all about keeping them, feeding them and why their fleeces are superior to wool (or anybody else’s alpacas if you ask Tracey!!)

I took dozens of pictures of the cuties and did at one point know their names and which ones I had knitted from 😀

Here’s a selection of my faves…

Do you wanna see how far I have gotten now with Venus? The impressive skirt is done, just whizzing my way though the body now…

I’m woefully behind on my blogging so I’d better get writing the next post ..or maybe I’ll knit a while…..