Several years ago, a friend of mine had a white Alpaca and a Black Alpaca for about 4 months. When she sold them, they let her have the fleeces. She asked me to spin them for her, and I agreed. It took me at least a year to go get the fleeces from her, and I think it has been about 18 months since I have had them in my possession!
I made the mistake of trying to wash the white fleece before spinning. It would have been much better if I had just flicked the ends and spun it lock by lock! I ended up having to use the Viking combs, to try and salvage the fleece, and I lost a lot to the shorter fibers felting in the wash.
I was really afraid that I wouldn't have enough good yarn to make it worth my time. It made me procrastinate, a long time! This week, I was looking at the unfinished objects that had been nagging me, you know the one's you have agreed to do for others, but just hadn't gotten around to. This white Alpaca was at the top of my list!
First I worked hard at getting all the fleece combed and on a cookie sheet ready to spin. The alpaca, even though it is prepped and ready to spin, it is very slippery and will fall apart at the slightest breeze.
Once that was done, I bagged up all the felted bits in a ziplock bag, and I will see if I can find a crafter that felts that will want to take it off of my hands. Then I set to spinning, and I spun for a couple of days here and there this week. Finally last night, I finished the singles and started navajo plying, I finished plying this afternoon. I took some glamour shots and it is now soaking in a warm bath, I can't wait to get it drying!
The black fleece should be a breeze after this! I did not wash it, and I have had success with flicking the ends to remove the short fibers at the butt end and the slight felting at the tips that is perfectly normal to find in these fleeces. I will conserve the short fibers to card later on, but I really want to get this spinning job done! Hopefully, I will be able to work on it this month, and get it out the door.
Oh, I forgot to say, I ended up with just over 400 yards of 3 ply lace weight yarn, ( I hope my friend likes thin yarn!) I am happy with that amount of yarn, it was well worth facing my fears and just do it!
Isn't it pretty!
Until next time, Happy Weaving and Spinning, Tina
I made the mistake of trying to wash the white fleece before spinning. It would have been much better if I had just flicked the ends and spun it lock by lock! I ended up having to use the Viking combs, to try and salvage the fleece, and I lost a lot to the shorter fibers felting in the wash.
First I worked hard at getting all the fleece combed and on a cookie sheet ready to spin. The alpaca, even though it is prepped and ready to spin, it is very slippery and will fall apart at the slightest breeze.
Once that was done, I bagged up all the felted bits in a ziplock bag, and I will see if I can find a crafter that felts that will want to take it off of my hands. Then I set to spinning, and I spun for a couple of days here and there this week. Finally last night, I finished the singles and started navajo plying, I finished plying this afternoon. I took some glamour shots and it is now soaking in a warm bath, I can't wait to get it drying!
The black fleece should be a breeze after this! I did not wash it, and I have had success with flicking the ends to remove the short fibers at the butt end and the slight felting at the tips that is perfectly normal to find in these fleeces. I will conserve the short fibers to card later on, but I really want to get this spinning job done! Hopefully, I will be able to work on it this month, and get it out the door.
Isn't it pretty!
Until next time, Happy Weaving and Spinning, Tina
3 comments:
....and soft???? You can almost see how soft that must feel!
Beautiful! And what a fat lot of work too, but it looks like the end product was so worth it.
It is pretty, but I bet it's pretty luscious!
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