Thursday 7 July 2011

Tour de fleece day 6

An early post today because I did my daily spinning this morning. I do tend to get a little obssessed with whatever I am working on, so because of the tour I am totally hooked on spinning, knitting has taken a back seat (where it has not been for months).

I did the prep and a little of the spinning for this yesterday, but it was too late at night to alter my day 5 post. I have returned to alpaca and this time used my spindle. It was one of the fibres I bought over a year ago to do a big project with lots of fibre types, I am only just getting round to spinning them up.

I split it into skinny roving strips again, I have found this makes my spinning so much faster, and the airer is a good way to store the strip without getting in a mess.


It does look a bit creepy, like human hair.

I made a fairly thin single from this, it will be navajo plied tomorrow using my wheel and then be put with the banana for knitting after the tour.



I am glad this was not my first alpaca spinning because I think I would have been put off a little. It is very hairy to the touch, although a close look shows all the fibres are the same, so I don't think it is a dehairing problem (I am not sure about the details of this though). The colour is a gorgeous chocolate brown and it did draft very nicely and the roving joined easily, so not all bad, but I think there is nicer alpaca roving out there (actually I know there is as I started the tour with some).

I couldn't tell if it was Suri or Hucaya, it was a fluffy roving cloud, but I could not see any crimpiness in the fibres. I have a few waste scraps left so I will compare them to the bags of Suri and Hucaya when I get those out to spin.

I have some baby alpaca to spin next, which is much softer to the touch so I think that will be a better experience.

2 comments:

  1. I can't wait to get settled in the new house so I can spin and knit again! I feel so inspired when I look at your beautiful chocolate brown yarn!

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  2. Ha ha it does look like hair! I wish my hair were more like that ;-)

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