Fawn & Rose Gray Alpaca

When I first contacted Mrs. V about processing her alpaca fiber in exchange for keeping some of it, I did not realize there was an entire colony of fiber artists doing exactly the same thing at Spin a Pound Get a Pound™ on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/SOGOFIBER.  This is an exciting revelation!

Mrs. V’s fiber came in around January 11th, 2014.  I began to sort it on the 16th and wrote down some notes as I went, for this update.  First, I weighed the lot with my postal scale and found 2 lb 5.4 oz.  Then, I numbered the bags for description.

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Prime Alpaca Skirtings

• Bag 1: Golden Brown 2.8 oz.
• Bag 2: Darker Milk Chocolate 5.2 oz.
• Bag 3: Large bag of Golden Brown curly skirtings.  1 lb, 11 oz.
• Bag 4:  Partly carded Golden Brown and Cream 3.0 oz
• Bag 5: Oatmeal and Cream. 5.2 oz.
• Bag 6: Darker Milk Chocolate & Cream. 5.2 oz.

I took a brown paper shopping bag, weighed it, and found it to be 2.6 oz by the postal scale.  Then, I added a handful of fluff from each bag until I reached one pound.  This would be my lot.

Mrs. V decided to mix her lot of fiber for a variegated look.  This is a beautiful choice of golden browns and creams.  Some of my first impressions were the renewed love for the soft, fine, lofty fiber.  It seemed to be quite clean, overall, especially as the whole batch was advertised as skirting and is a test for later, more prime sections of fleece.  There were no obvious chunks of manure, some bits of hay, grass, and coniferous twig bits.

I do not like to leave fiber in plastic bags for long, so I began to empty the rest of the plastic bags into the cardboard box.  Still, the fiber was very nice, until I came to the third bag, which had quite a bit of V.M.

In my workshop, I began to pick out bits of hay, bedding, grass, felted balls and any tiny bits of manure with guard hairs and short second and third cuts.  The guard hair clumps stick out and do not card, spin, or “play well with others”.  As I picked through bag 3 carefully, I found much of it was things I would normally pick out: dirty, short, and lumpy.  I picked as much good out as I could, but ended up putting most of it into the discard pile, to be washed separately, in a smaller bucket.  I washed the best fiber in a larger bucket.  Perhaps, I’ll spin a chunky, uncarded yarn with the discards as there is too much V.M. to put through the carder.  Perhaps it would be better as a felt lining for a pet bed, or for bird’s nests.  I’ll know more after the washing process.  If desired, I can also send it back with the processed yarn.

Pulling the fiber apart.

I hear the sounds of dust and bits dropping out.

Things I take out include short second and third cuttings,

bits of tangled vegetable matter and fiber.

matted V.M. clumps…

dirty pinches…

unknown elements that would hinder carding…

grassy bits…

and felted balls.

This is some of the good stuff!

Beautiful!

The seperated fibers.

The best fiber is on the left. The discards are in the box.

Mrs. V’s part of the best fiber fills a bannana box.

For my lot, I separated the lots by color and texture, again, setting apart the bag 3 lot for other purposes.

In the washing process, I am following the same pattern as is noted under my “scouring” tab.  During the washing, the various textures meld into one another when they are in the water, becoming hairlike, similar to hair in a drain, or a cat’s hairball.  The alpaca fiber soaks up water and becomes heavy, then shrinks considerably after spinning out.  During the first wash, my sister told me the whole house smelled like a barn, but that cleared up by the third wash.  I decided to use a black mesh bag for spinning out, so there would be no clogging issue for the washer.  The first water was murky brown, and the second was similar, but successive washings have been clearing up bit by bit.  I was delayed by a four-day flu & fever bug that hit with a vengeance, but the fiber only became cleaner with the extended soak.  I have used laundry soap, a bit of strawberry essence shampoo, a bit of antibacterial dish liquid, and a drizzle of my favorite antibacterial cleaning fluid to kill any dust or mold, as I am really allergic to both.  This lent a light, pleasant citrus smell to the wash.  The next step is to begin rinsing.

I fill the bucket with hot water and soap, then stop the water.

Then, I take the bucket away from the spigot and add the fiber.

To the left, Mrs. V’s lot.

A matching banana box of best fiber for my lot.

The big buckets are for the best fiber, the small buckets for the discard fiber.

My little discard lot.

Throughout the washing and rinsing process, I used fabric bags to help with the water extraction process.  I would open the washer, hold a bag over the washer, and pour the bucket of fiber and water into the bag.  After drawing the string, I set the washer to the final spin cycle to extract the water.  In the last rinse, I added a blend of essential oils in a base of olive oil to my portion of the fiber to facilitate spinning.

After the final spin, I laid the fiber on my drying rack and left it to dry for 2 or 3 days.  About this time, I acquired the local fever and flu, so my anticipated time stretched into over a week while I quarantined myself away from everyone, got well, and began to pick up after the undesirable “vacation”.

As I began to card the fiber, I noticed the oiled fiber pulled apart easier, but was perhaps a bit too oily.  The plain alpaca separated and carded a bit harder.  A blend of both fibers produced a fine product.  After the washing process, I found my lot seemed to contain more of the white fiber and Mrs. V’s contained more of the brown.  The rose grey actually turned out to be a beautiful cream after washing, and the fawn has cleaned up to a nice golden honey brown color.  I am finding that many people prefer a variegated homespun look, so I am considering combining the lots and re-dividing after the spinning process.  This will produce a much more even division anyway.  I just purchased my own carder and am waiting until it arrives this weekend to card further as I do not feel comfortable about using my friend’s borrowed carder to finish this project.  The skirting is not as good as the prime fleeces I just finished and contains much more vegetable matter.

The contents of bag three were still very bad after washing, so I am not planning to process those bits, but am available to send it back, if requested.  If not, a friend told me she uses similar parts for compost and they really enrich her soil.

The spinning process was different from the former project.  Because the skirting is made primarily of shorter cuts, felted balls, guard hairs, and cuts containing above average V.M., picking out every bit of foreign material by hand is not feasible.  Some of it falls out on my lap during the spinning process, and some of it I remove before, during, and after the spinning, but some of it will stay in.  Because of this, I am using a looser hand position and reminding myself that “chunky is ok.”  Actually, the yarn is not even 1/4 as thick as the store-bought chunky “homespun” on a thread, but it feels chunky to me as I spin, since my fingers have learned to detect the smallest pieces of non-fiber.

Using my largest niddy noddy body, I wound the yarn off of the bobbin.  I’m using the large niddy noddy because this is a job of continuous fiber color and the big one devours the yarn off of the bobbin, so I can get back to spinning.  One day, maybe I’ll find someone who can make more bobbins, but for now, one is all I have.  If I don’t find more bobbins soon, perhaps, I’ll make a few more niddy noddies.  That would allow me to spin various colors quickly.  Hmmm…

2-16-14 Update

This batch of alpaca is spun!  Most of the fiber was useable, but the large bag of golden brown had a lot of chunky matted V.M. stuff at the bottom that would not clean up.  I put it in a quart baggie to be sent back, if desired.  I also took some of the chunky discard stuff and spun it from the lock instead of putting it through the carder.  My mom likes the look and says it would be great in a mixed media journal.  It has more foreign material in it than normal, so it would not be a nice clothing yarn, but might just be what the artist ordered for crafts.

The colors Mrs. V. chose worked out so well together.  Right now, the yarn is stretching on the niddy noddy and when they are dry, I’ll clean the yarn once more, set the twist, dry, and wind it into center-pull balls, dividing the yarn by weight with my postal scale.  I was so excited about receiving my carder and working with it that I did most of the carding and spinning within 24 hours.  Because there were a lot of seconds in the skirtings, I blended everything together instead of picking them out.  It gave an interesting textured look.

I wet the niddy noddy containing the first few bobbins of yarn and left it to dry and stretch.

My Ashford fine carder is in!

I send the fiber through the carder once.

And then I send it through again.

The carder needle is inserted under the batt.

And lifted up.

I use the flicker brush to help lift the batt off of the drum.

I pick out some foreign material.

Then roll the fiber into a huge rolag.

I clean the drum, then repeat.

The first few batts are done.

From far left: discard box, batt box, brown alpaca, mixed alpaca, cream alpaca, and brown alpaca.

The batt box grows full.

The spun yarn.

The second cuts and felted bits snagged in the flyer hooks and gave a bit of overtwist.

The niddy noddy grows fuller.

I feel the layers for bits of V.M. that stick out so I can remove them.

Wetting the full niddy noddy.

Leaving the fiber to dry and stretch.

My niddy noddy holds a wrap of about 95 inches. There were 329 wraps, for a total of 868.19 yards on the large skein..

Drying the yarn on the skein was a great way to stretch the yarn and set the twist.

It took out a lot of over-twist, making a beautiful yarn.

I spun the knubbly yarn uncarded, from the lock.

To clean the yarn once more, I used hot water and Dawn.

I boiled the yarn for thirty minutes.

And let it set for a few hours.

Then, I stretched it wet again and dried it for about five days.

The weight of the large skein.

The weight on the small chunky skein.

Dividing the large skein.

Dividing the small skein.

The leftover fiber, not used for chunky yarn.

The divided lot.

Ready to ship!

I am glad for the experience to learn with this alpaca fiber.  I shipped this yarn on February 24, 2014 via Priority Mail and it was received on February 28, 2014. 

Tracking Number: 9405903699300131194484

Mrs. V’s comments:

“I LOVE the yarn! It is not only beautiful, but it smells heavenly!
Please let me know if you would like to spin some of our fiber in the future… I will have a huge selection after we shear on 4/23.  I would like you to pick out the fleeces for you right after shearing.
Thank you again for sending me such a lovely product!  I would love to work together so that I acquire a good selection of hands spun yarns for my customers!”