Archive for the ‘Alpacas’ Category

A rare sunny day

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

We have not had a 90 degree day since April. Now, I know I shouldn’t be complaining, but we haven’t had any sun either! Today was a nice sunny day, squeezed in between two rainy days. It has been a while since we could work outside, so I decided to take advantage of the weather and prepare some fleece.

The first thing I do is skirt the fleece. I have a big screen that sits on two saw horses, and I work on the fleece on this screen. The screen allows any dirt and junk to fall through, and since I’m working on the lawn anyway, I can just toss stuff on the ground.

After I skirt the fleece, it goes into the fiber tumbler. This is a handy dandy thing my husband built for me, it tumbles the fiber in the mesh drum, and knocks out even more dirt and short pieces. This step saves a lot of washing time. I have been washing the fiber in big buckets outside, which has been a real timesaver. And, no mess!

When the ground dries out we will have to take out the alpaca chute, and do some nail trimming and stuff. That will make for an interesting post!

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New yarn

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Ok, I can see from the date of my last post that I am NOT a good blogger! I think about doing it, but I just don’t.

I wanted to share the result of my latest efforts, and the efforts of my very patient spinning teacher, Julie. My first yarn is complete, I call it Peanut Butter Cup, it’s a 2 ply yarn of Leo’s and Max’s fleeces, and the colors are exactly like yarn’s name. :-) It’s a bulky/novelty yarn, all soft and squishy. I think it would make a nice hat and scarf combo.

The alpacas have been enjoying the cooler weather. Usually by now we have an electric bill the size of the national debt, keeping the fans running to cool the alpacas. Not this year! Hopefully, this weather will hold, and we won’t start to fry in the 90 degree heat.

Here’s a picture of my yarn
my yarn!

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Strauch electric doublewide

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Ok, it’s here! I am finding that carding alpaca fiber is more of an art than I thought. How it cards even varies from alpaca to alpaca. The lighter fleece requires some pressure (think carding a cotton ball or cotton candy without the sticky :-), the heavier fleece requires less pressure. I do find that I am using the slow speeds to card, this gives me better control and there is less fiber loss.

I can’t say enough about how great this carder is though! I haven’t had my carder lesson yet, and I’ve been carding away. I’m glad to have the lesson later though, this gives me a chance to find out what my questions are, and I can spend time learning more advanced techniques. Plus, my carding mentor has some neat tips and tricks to share.

I am keeping the ‘extra’ fiber in ziploc bags, the fluff that I pull off of the carder, and the fleece that is left behind in the carding cloth. A spinner might like these, but wouldn’t they be great for needlefelting?

I have carded both washed and tumbled fiber. So far, the washed fiber is easier to card, but that just might be because my first try at tumbling fiber was a large load. When I get Cassie’s light fawn fleece out of the nooks and crannies of the tumber I might just split the bag in 2 parts and run it through the tumbler again.

More on my handy dandy fiber tumbler in the next post! This tumbler is a work in progress, made by my husband and tweaked to meet my changing requests. So far, he has been very patient.

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Welcome!

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Welcome to my new blog! Here I will share our progress as we wander our way through the wonderful world of alpacas. While we have been raising alpacas for quite a few years, we are now looking at processing our fiber ourselves, which is where the adventure begins.

Today is the shipping date for my new electric carder, the Strauch Finest Doublewide. I figured if I was going to learn to card, why not learn on the best, right? I chose the larger size because we are processing fleece from 20 or so alpacas, and a suri llama as well. While I wait (impatiently) for my carder to arrive, I am finding that the preparation time for the fiber is nothing to sneeze at as well.

Of course, the weather is not cooperating, and we are supposed to get rain for the next couple of days. Well, fleece + rain = big yuck. So, I started working inside, sorting the fiber and hoping to take it outside to clean. Well, as you can probably guess, that didn’t work! Our afternoon rain started this morning. I shook out what I could, and I am off to wash the fiber.

My first batch will be washed using a children’s shampoo with cream rinse. I read that this helped with the static problem when carding and spinning. We’ll see.

I’ll keep you posted!

Pat

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