More foreign fiber

And you thought you were done with Peru.  But there was more fiber!  And I'm here to tell you now that when other people (read: people who aren't interested and fiber and textiles) ask how we liked Peru and whether we have any pictures, what they want is pictures of Machu Picchu and Colca Canyon, etc etc.  It's amazing how quickly their eyes glaze over when I show them pictures of vicunas.  I don't understand it, but it's true.

We saw other camelids than vicuna, of course - we even got to feed some at a wonderful little camelid farm that had all four of the Peruvian camelids: llamas, guanacos, alpacas, and vicunas.

They were greedy.

So was I.

But the vicuna were too far away to pluck, alas.

There were also a number of women there, spinning and dyeing and weaving.  We got to see one of them grinding cochineal.

She showed us all of the shades of red that can be made with cochineal diluted with various other things.  They also had a lovely display of the colors that Peruvian weavers get from local native plants.

Too cool.  She demonstrated spinning, which didn't seem to entertain the other tourists as much as it did me.

Tucked away in corners were the products of her spinning:

and her tools.

Of course, we did go to the more usual tourist places, like Machu Picchu - where we found llamas.

And took the kind of pictures that all those other non-fiber people expect.

Next time, I'll share a few more of this sort, and then, with luck, I'll actually have achieved something worth sharing in my various knitting and spinning projects.

Meanwhile, I'm trying desperately to catch up on my never ending pre-semester to-do list.  I'm almost looking forward to meetings - at least then, I can knit!