Today's Projects
My big project today was to card some fiber so I have something to spin. All my carded roving is neatly packaged for sales. Rather than undo a package to have something to spin, I decided to start carding because I've got too much fiber in the house, anyhow. (Unfortunately, most of the too much fiber is thirds, but that's a story for a different post.) I worked on two batches of fiber today. The first batch is a blend that I think I'm going to call, "Puppies in the Wool Room." The second batch is a show blanket from an alpaca named Pinero.
My "Puppies in the Wool Room" Blend starts with our friends Ron & Marilyn Oliveira of Alpacas of Shepherd's Pasture. They have a partially finished wool room -- actually an alpaca fiber storage room -- in one of their sheds. This fall, they also had two young puppies. One day, the puppies got accidentally locked in the wool room. They investigated, and as bored puppies will, they found something to play with. Plastic bags of alpaca fiber make wonderful puppy toys. A dog can rip the plastic, then drag the sack around with this wonderful stuffing falling out -- it's rather like chewing the feathers out of a pillow. Then, if you rummage around in the fiber enough, you can find dingleberries to chew on -- and you never find those in the feathers of a pillow.
Marilyn was heartbroken. All her carefully stored fiber was stirred together in a big mess. A gorgeous black baby suri fleece suffered some of the worst damage. The dogs didn't damage the fiber, but they stirred it everywhere and got so much white fiber in the black suri that there is no way to make a black garment from the fiber without having white fibers everywhere. As a black fleece, it's ruined. However, baby suri is still wonderful fiber. It's already partially blended with these other fibers and since I enjoy making multi-color 100% alpaca blends and since I have experimented with huacaya-suri blends, I offered to take the fleece to see what I could do with it. Marilyn and I sorted through the fiber. What could be salvaged and returned to it's original fleece was salvaged. The badly stirred portions were set aside to be come my "Puppies in the wool room" blend. This is going to be a calico blend on a white base. The predominant colors will be black, dark red-brown, medium fawn, and white. There will also be some natural gray in the blend. The black, dark brown, and some of the fawn are suri alpaca. The white, gray, and most of the fawn are huacaya alpaca. One of the big challenges in creating the roving is to blend the fiber types to the yarn has a fairly even texture while keeping the colors sufficiently separate to give the yarn good color variation. It's going to be an interesting roving and it ought to make an interesting yarn.
Unfortunately, I discovered some damp patches in the fiber, so I wasn't able to finish the blend.
The other fiber I carded today is from an alpaca named Pinero. This is prime blanket fleece from his 2003 shearing and it was shown in a number of alpaca fleece shows during the 2003/2004 season and won a number of ribbons. I'm spinning this fleece for Jan of Happy Valley Alpacas in payment for several fleeces she gave me last summer. I generally work with washed alpaca fiber -- particularly when I'm working with fiber I intend to sell as roving. I prefer to spin washed alpaca fiber because it generally feels better on my fingers. Alpacas don't have lanolin, however, so it is seldom necessary to wash alpaca fiber prior to spinning. Some alpaca fleeces work up much better if they are carded and spun unwashed. Pinero's fleece had some tips that were starting to felt. It's a relatively fine fleece with lots of crimp and some cross-fibering. Rather than risk additional felting by washing the fleece prior to carding, I decided to work the fiber unwashed. it was a good decision. Pinero's fleece worked up really well. I put it through the carder twice, but it was really close to being spinnable after the first pass. It's going to be a fun fleece to spin.
The only thing I don't like about carding in December is that I do my carding outside. Pam banished the drum carder from the house after about fifteen minutes of use -- not a bad decision considering the amount of dust it generates. I try to do my carding during the summer when I can count on dry weather -- and it isn't cold and windy. However, I always end up in December or January with some fiber I want to card, so I end up freezing my fingers whenever our Western Oregon winter rain lets up enough that I have a dry place to card outside.
On the knitting needles: Some cruddy walmart-acrylic practice yarn and a badly botched and mangled practice piece
On the spinning wheel: I'll start Pinero this evening
On the crochet hooks: Nothing at the moment. I finished a hat yesterday using yarn handspun from Georgia's fiber.
On the skirting board: Puppies in the wool room blend, partially carded and drying more so I can finish the blend.
On deck: Another blend from the dog disaster in the wool room. The base fiber is a siver gray huacaya alpaca fleece to which I will add black baby suri. Both batches of fiber have a lot of color contamination, but that shouldn't matter in the blend. The end result should be a roving that spins to a gray yarn with black streaks.
Kim
My "Puppies in the Wool Room" Blend starts with our friends Ron & Marilyn Oliveira of Alpacas of Shepherd's Pasture. They have a partially finished wool room -- actually an alpaca fiber storage room -- in one of their sheds. This fall, they also had two young puppies. One day, the puppies got accidentally locked in the wool room. They investigated, and as bored puppies will, they found something to play with. Plastic bags of alpaca fiber make wonderful puppy toys. A dog can rip the plastic, then drag the sack around with this wonderful stuffing falling out -- it's rather like chewing the feathers out of a pillow. Then, if you rummage around in the fiber enough, you can find dingleberries to chew on -- and you never find those in the feathers of a pillow.
Marilyn was heartbroken. All her carefully stored fiber was stirred together in a big mess. A gorgeous black baby suri fleece suffered some of the worst damage. The dogs didn't damage the fiber, but they stirred it everywhere and got so much white fiber in the black suri that there is no way to make a black garment from the fiber without having white fibers everywhere. As a black fleece, it's ruined. However, baby suri is still wonderful fiber. It's already partially blended with these other fibers and since I enjoy making multi-color 100% alpaca blends and since I have experimented with huacaya-suri blends, I offered to take the fleece to see what I could do with it. Marilyn and I sorted through the fiber. What could be salvaged and returned to it's original fleece was salvaged. The badly stirred portions were set aside to be come my "Puppies in the wool room" blend. This is going to be a calico blend on a white base. The predominant colors will be black, dark red-brown, medium fawn, and white. There will also be some natural gray in the blend. The black, dark brown, and some of the fawn are suri alpaca. The white, gray, and most of the fawn are huacaya alpaca. One of the big challenges in creating the roving is to blend the fiber types to the yarn has a fairly even texture while keeping the colors sufficiently separate to give the yarn good color variation. It's going to be an interesting roving and it ought to make an interesting yarn.
Unfortunately, I discovered some damp patches in the fiber, so I wasn't able to finish the blend.
The other fiber I carded today is from an alpaca named Pinero. This is prime blanket fleece from his 2003 shearing and it was shown in a number of alpaca fleece shows during the 2003/2004 season and won a number of ribbons. I'm spinning this fleece for Jan of Happy Valley Alpacas in payment for several fleeces she gave me last summer. I generally work with washed alpaca fiber -- particularly when I'm working with fiber I intend to sell as roving. I prefer to spin washed alpaca fiber because it generally feels better on my fingers. Alpacas don't have lanolin, however, so it is seldom necessary to wash alpaca fiber prior to spinning. Some alpaca fleeces work up much better if they are carded and spun unwashed. Pinero's fleece had some tips that were starting to felt. It's a relatively fine fleece with lots of crimp and some cross-fibering. Rather than risk additional felting by washing the fleece prior to carding, I decided to work the fiber unwashed. it was a good decision. Pinero's fleece worked up really well. I put it through the carder twice, but it was really close to being spinnable after the first pass. It's going to be a fun fleece to spin.
The only thing I don't like about carding in December is that I do my carding outside. Pam banished the drum carder from the house after about fifteen minutes of use -- not a bad decision considering the amount of dust it generates. I try to do my carding during the summer when I can count on dry weather -- and it isn't cold and windy. However, I always end up in December or January with some fiber I want to card, so I end up freezing my fingers whenever our Western Oregon winter rain lets up enough that I have a dry place to card outside.
On the knitting needles: Some cruddy walmart-acrylic practice yarn and a badly botched and mangled practice piece
On the spinning wheel: I'll start Pinero this evening
On the crochet hooks: Nothing at the moment. I finished a hat yesterday using yarn handspun from Georgia's fiber.
On the skirting board: Puppies in the wool room blend, partially carded and drying more so I can finish the blend.
On deck: Another blend from the dog disaster in the wool room. The base fiber is a siver gray huacaya alpaca fleece to which I will add black baby suri. Both batches of fiber have a lot of color contamination, but that shouldn't matter in the blend. The end result should be a roving that spins to a gray yarn with black streaks.
Kim
posted by Upper Alpacas | 6:17 PM
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