JandJ Nettle

On Friday 24th June we had 2 births. The first one was Nettle, this is her nickname as at the moment she doesn't have a real one.


Her mother QAI Claire came into the country with her mum Drew Barrymore as a cria born in transit. Claire is the most beautiful alpaca, very gentle & calm just like her mum. Leo was Claire's first cria & he is a large gentle alpaca now living with Kim, Steve & Jo. Her next 2 cria were not so lucky & we lost both Chance & Enchanted before they were 4 months old, both of whom were stunning.

So this little girl, prettiest little cria we have, is very special & we really want her to live. We watched her being born & then left her & Claire alone to bond, I went back to the field an hour later to check on them & couldn't find Nettle anywhere. She had managed to sit down in a clump of nettles at the side of the field shelter & I got stung getting her out, so Nettle is her name for now. She is the only alpaca not registered & has to be by Christmas Eve at the latest, so fingers crossed we will be able to give her a very special name but to us I think she will always be Nettle.

My Designers part 2

Here's a little about my second designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer or Jackie E-S as she is known. Last summer we decided to branch out from our usual dk to some beautiful thin 2ply wool. We picked 2 fleeces Leo who is light fawn and Bliss who is black for this process. Then with ideas of lovely lacy scarves, all we needed were some gorgeous patterns & after scouring the internet we found www.heartstringsfibrearts.com & Jackie E-S. Her patterns are beautiful just what we were looking for & we have knitted Riverene & Reversible Lace Ladder in Leo & Riverene in Bliss, we will have to wait for a photo of the Bliss scarf as it's in the next photo shoot in 2 weeks time.

Must try harder to blog

I've not had a lot of time to blog recently & have decided over the next week to bring my blog up to date with what has happened since August!

Affinity is growing into a beautiful alpaca.

In September we were invited to have a stall at the MX-5 National Rally at Mallory Park. It was a beautiful sunny day & from our stall we could see the cars wizzing around the track. It was amazing to see rows & rows of MX 5's.

The day after we were at Stamford, an altogether different day weather wise, no sun. We had been invited to the Stamford Dog Show which was a lovely large event on the Town Meadow. To this one we took 4 of our alpacas, Leo, Fergus, Kasper & Robin. Leo had been requested as often featured in the Stamford Living Magazine there is a King Charles Spaniel called Leo. We had a lovely day, lots of talking about the alpacas, there was lots to see, as well as the dogs & alpacas, there were reptiles & owls.