The Winter Moose project has a Summer intern from the University of Vermont. Welcome Doran! Here he is with one of Vermont's alpaca farmers, Steve Shaw, of Moonacre Farm. Doran is involved in all aspects of our research into regional resources. If you have a mill or fiber farm in Vermont, you are likely to hear from him in the next few weeks. 

Weaving with a knitter's yarn is not for the faint of heart. Mills work hard to perfect the elastic, spongy and soft yarns that knitters love to feel sliding off their needles and into sweaters and hats, etc. For weavers, this elasticity can be very difficult on the loom. There are "weaving yarns" and ours were not. We had very specific measurement requirements for our second cloth, and measuring it, while under tension, proved a frustrating business. The tools of the trade are pictured here - note the tape measure on the right. The amount of play or give in each pass of the shuttle, and the force with which one yarn is packed into the next, all affect the ultimate measurements. So, there was some trial and error in the creation of these 7 + yards, but the results, we think, are absolutely gorgeous!