A friend of mine gave me some llama yarn that she wove herself.  It's lovely but very coarse.  I wanted to make a scarf out of it but it starts looking odd because it's so stiff and coarse.

I'm kind of a novice at knitting.  Is there a trick to knitting with this particular kind of fiber?

Happy Holidays All,

I really wanted to give my niece something hand made for Christmas so I decided to make her a rag doll.  I'd never sewn anything like this before.  I've had a sewing machine for years but pretty much just use it to hem stuff up.  My Mom is a brilliant seamstress, makes the most amazing stuff, but apparently that skips a generation cause I'm really quite bad at it.

I found this site in another post, http://www.bowls-n-annies.com, which totally inspired me.  Those dolls are so cute!  I didn't use the actual pattern but I did use her Makin an Annie page as a guide.  Mine are paler cause they're Seattleites 

I like the first one so much that I made another one for my friends daughter.  The one in blue was the first one that I did.  I raided my bags of give away clothes for some bits of fabric with fun prints or features.  The one on the left is a sundress that had lace around the bottom, just cut out two triangularish pieces and sewed them together, added a green ribbon for a sash.  I got a little braver on the second one and actually sewed a little drop waist dress from two flowery button up shirts.

They're far from perfect but I love them.  I just hope the one on the left doesn't end up a chew toy (or worse) for my friends chihuahua.