Gluttony

Ok, I didn't leave Squire Creek empty handed. No....I didn't steal an Alpaca! Goodness, can't you just see Tucker with one of those? lol No thank you lol. They are wonderful animals, but I do believe the association I live in would not believe that it was a dog.

This is what I came home with.....

....it's also my current obsession!

Yep, you're seeing it correctly. 9 full alpaca fleece. Sorted even...lol. (Please ignore the two black bags at the top of the picture. They are sheepy fleece waiting to be skirted, picked and washed. I do believe they'll be waiting a bit longer now.)

Michael and Alan were interested in seeing how two specific animals fiber spins up, so those two are the first ones I've dug into. I weighed out approximately a pound of each, bagged it up and took it in to work on it. (This should show you what a complete novice in the Alpaca department I am! A pound of each?!! If I'd only known what that would turn into!!! lol) This one is out of a bag labeled J1 which I believe belonged to Joaquin.

This is some of the fiber from Emilio. I was too excited to get a ruler and show you the exact measurement, but take into consideration that I don't really have petite girly hands. Anyway, I've been working with this off and on all week. I read online that you get a better carding if you comb out the locks with a dog comb before starting the carding process. This seems to open up the locks and release any vegetable matter in them as well as knocking loose a majority of the dust or dirt that may be there. It's working wonders and I managed to fill a plastic grocery sack with combed out locks. I was planning on combing out the whole pound and then carding it all at once, but the process was becoming a bit slow....and the carder was calling me.

It's a good thing too. I had absolutely no idea how much this stuff was going to fluff up in the carding process. I was completely amazed at the fullness of the batts I pulled off the carder and how far that small amount of fiber was going. Thanks to hubby's upgrade on the carder, the process was easy going and last night I was able to get some carding done.

Look at how nicely this carded up....and only one pass through the carder! I could have put it all through again to blend a bit better, but to be honest I wanted to start spinning it up. There are a total of 4 batts stacked there. At this point I rolled them up and pulled them into roving. I did start spinning last night, but wanted to be able to concentrate on the spinning to try to achieve some evenness in these skeins, so I put it off until today.

Today I worked on it some more. This does like to be spun fine for sure! The coloring in the picture is not very accurate at all. As you can tell here it looks grey, on the wheel it's more of a caramel color, but I think that once washed it will be more of a cream color or off white. There's still quite a bit of dirt on the fiber but it's spinning up beautifully. I'm completely enamored with Alpaca to be sure!
I can not thank Michael and Alan enough for giving me this opportunity. This is such a great experience for me and one I don't think I'll be able to repay them for. I'll be contacting you guys when I get the first skeins done!