My, oh my, how things have changed in just a month’s time.

One month ago I was basking in the glory of my new website (GnomeAcres.com) that is devoted to all my knitting and yarn making endeavors. I was also knitting anything and everything as quickly as Spiderman can weave a web just so I wouldn’t have to think about the ongoing, ever-increasing, nagging pain I was in. How trivial that all seems now — not the excessive pain part, but the obsessive knitting and building a website part. To say that life has changed forever is a bit of an understatement.

So many things to introduce the little one too. I can’t wait to take her on a road trip. Teach her how to drive Aunt Julie’s tractor and wrassle llamas. The deliciousness of Yoohoo and BBQ’d porksteaks. The enormity and silence of the Redwoods. Snowball fights. Playing in rain puddles. LEGOLAND and LEGO’s…so, so many LEGO’s. The list goes on and on.

So much to do, and so little time.

It’s finally done! GnomeAcres.com is up and running! Ok, well it’s not done-done, but done enough to blog about it. I’m really happy with the way this WordPress site turned out. I started out with a free theme, but there’s practically nothing left in the code that resembles the original theme.

I’m happy I finally have a place to showcase some of the products I’ve been making. My plan is to eventually show the lengthy process that it takes to get the fiber from a llama or alpaca to a finished product.

About a year ago, I decided to purchase the domain GnomeAcres.com. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with it, but I knew it had to be something farm/agriculture/fun related. (And, yes, there are lyrics that I made up that are set to the “Green Acres” theme music.) The site itself doesn’t look all that fancy yet, but that will soon change. (Let’s face it, when your full-time gig is making websites, you sort of slack off when it comes to doing a website for yourself because it doesn’t necessarily pay the bills.)

Well, I don’t have my own farm yet, so I decided that I would use this property to advertise all of the different products I’ve been making from llama, alpaca and sheep wool. Currently, I have hats, purses, scarves, and hat & scarf sets. I just made my first set of baby leg/arm warmers, and I’m getting ready to dive into the world of mittens.

I’m trying to keep the products listed as up-to-date as possible. If you see something you’d like to have, let me know. Everything you see on Gnome Acres was made by me. 99% of the alpaca yarn I used to make the items was also spun by me on my fabulous spinning wheel, of which I lovingly refer to as “The Spinster”. (She’s a beaut of a spinning wheel that deserves her own blog post.)

In a couple of weeks, I’m planning on documenting the entire process of making something from llama or alpaca wool. From the beginning stages of shearing the animal, to the extensive process that is involved with skirting the fleece, cleaning it, dying it (optional) and spinning it into yarn. I plan on using my own llama, Clementine, pictured to the right, as the example. This will be the first time she will have ever been sheared, given that she’ll only be a year old this coming August. The cria fleece (“cria” is the term for baby in the llama/alpaca world), which is the first fleece you ever get from the animal, is usually the softest fleece you will ever get from the animal. Clementine had a rough, stressful start in life, which can often play a part in how soft the fleece is, but I think she’s going to give a fabulous fleece this year. I can’t wait to make something out of it.