Spin or Bin - Alpaca

As I referred to in the last blog post here, I have quite a lot of raw fibre - sheep and alpaca fleece - stashed in the attic and other presses.

It is taking up space and I have to make a decision as to what should happed to it.

None of it is either exotic or fine enough to offer to another spinner so it comes down to spin it or bin it.

I have already disposed of several small samples of different fibre in a mixed batt which was fun to make. It is spun into singles and plied with Logwood dyed singles to make a bulky yarn - which takes up much less space as a hank than the raw fibre did and it may well find itself in a new knitted or crocheted rug.

Next, I have a rather ugly sheep-feed plastic bag full of raw uncleaned russet-coloured Alpaca fleece, donated to me by someone who themselves had it from an Alpaca owner, quite a few years ago now.

I decided to drum-card it, draw off rollags and spin woolen-style on my Ashford Traveller. I've spun something similar before but used combing and worsted spinning and got a fairly harsh yarn. I don't know if this was due to the fleece that time being coarser, or whether I had not selected from it properly, leaving in too much leg hair for example but anyway, I want this one t to be softer and "squishier".

Initially I took locks, teased them and removed noils,  nibs, second cuts and dirt and then drum-carded a batt. The batt came about 3/4 ways up the tynes of the carder. I then drew it off using a dowel rod I had forming a pretty large role!! Large indeed - much too big and dense to spin easily.

Turns out it weighed about 29 grams - much too big.

After some testing, I settled on carding 4 grams of cleaned and teased locks and drew it off on a small rolling pin to create a much more open role.

This spun pretty easily into a single which plys back on itself with 4 - 5 twists per inch. I've kept a sample for further spinning and will work my way through this over the coming week.

I note old Border Collie, Hudson, above in the photo. At 18 years old, he is rather limited in his abilities yet he manages to show up wherever the action is and like his younger step-sister Connie, can obstruct that action including bringing the spinning wheel to a halt with his hinders.

The 4 gram roll being drawn off:

More to come in time.