Processing Alpaca Fiber...ooooooh

Just about a year ago, I blogged about going to Alpaca on the Rocks, where I enjoyed myself immensely: petting the animals, talking to the breeders, fondling the fibers and yarn, and dropping a few $$. One of the fibers: the Suri Alpaca raw fiber was a generous gift from a breeder when I told her I had no experience with Suri. It went from this:

to this after washing, carding, and spinning:

A second fiber I purchased was Huacaya Alpaca fiber in black. This was washed, but still unprocessed in any other way. I thought I would show the steps I took finally this week, to bring this fiber from its very natural state to spun.

Straight out of the bag, this is what it looked like. You could see the original curls and feel the softness. But it would be necessary to fluff out the fibers and line them up somewhat for even spinning. On Ravelry last year, I purchased from another Raveler a pair of Ashford Handcards and began to work this fiber. It is almost like brushing out a dog for smoothness.

Several passes on the cards is followed by rolling the batt into a rolag

From this stage, I spun on my wheel and these are how nice the singles look!

So, that is the process from start to finish. Of course, if you have raw DIRTY fiber, then there are the added steps of washing, rinsing, and drying the fiber to get to the point where you can begin to card it. I plan on making the singles into two ply fiber and then maybe knitting a black and white hat with the white alpaca above. I was bound and determined to finished this fiber up before this weekend because guess what.....Alpaca on the Rocks is here again and with all that I have learned this year, I may invest in lots more fiber!

Start to finish: right to left, without the live animal which did not fit on the ironing board!

Catching up with my blog

The past couple of weeks have been a complete blur. I have had only one day off a week and I have tried to fill those with fun instead of housework, and the house is starting to show it.

Last week I spent 5 days in a class in preparation for my Series 7 exam and that was after spending the last three weeks racing through the textbooks so that I wouldn't be totally flummoxed on day one. Great instructor, but it was like squeezing an entire college course in a week. Whew....he talked fast, but at least he was entertaining as well. My window for taking the exam opened today and I scheduled it for 3/26 which means two more weeks of cramming while the class is fresh in my mind. Practice tests, practice tests, practice tests....... if I go over them often enough, it should stick in my aging brain.

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A week ago Sunday, at the last minute, I decided to take the day for myself and went up to Longmont for the Alpaca Festival. I went to one last summer and had a ball, so it was my perfect break from studying. Many of the same vendors were there, and there were plenty of cute fuzzy creatures to pet.

I learned the difference between Suri and Huacaya alpacas both on the hoof and with the fiber. As a matter of fact, one rancher from Country Haven Farm just gave me a handful of Suri fiber, since I mentioned that I had never really worked with it before and didn't know the differences. It was unwashed so it would be an adventure to prepare it to spin it. In case you didn't know the difference, Huacaya are the fluffy ones, and Suri are the ones that look like they need a haircut. Suri fiber is much longer, silkier with curly locks and and is considered a more premium fiber.

I also purchased, and proceeded to spin some clouds of the softest aqua/lavender fluff from Goosebump Yarn Co. I jumped right in spinning it, even before I photographed it. Here is 3 oz of singles, ready to be plyed. I worked hard to keep the singles a bit thicker, so the two ply will be worsted weight when finished.

From Switzer Land Alpacas, I got some washed black fiber, which is ready to card with my new carders I purchased a month ago and haven't put to the test yet. More adventure.

And last but not least, I bought about 2.5 oz of prepared roving in a mix of greys, blacks and tans from Deer Valley Alpacas. This is naturally colored and not dyed and should be really tweedy when spun. Here is the bobbin in progress still on the wheel and some of the unspun roving.