Handspun on the Needles

I've gotten bold. There is handspun alpaca on the knitting needles. In all honesty, it's not good alpaca, but it is alpaca. It's coarse thirds with a lot of short cuts so it sheds a lot. It's not good handspun, it's a hasty spinning job that gave me a full bobbin of two-ply in under an hour. However, it is handspun and it is on the knitting needles.

What happened to that practice piece in cheap acrylic? I simply pulled the needles out of it. I have exactly two pairs of knitting needles and I wanted to use the bigger ones.

I'm not attempting socks and this is an experiment, not a practice piece.

I'm making some knitted felt which is why the hasty spinning is acceptable -- perhaps even preferable.

The fiber is mixed alpaca thirds. Depending on the alpaca, spinnable-length third-quality fiber is found on the lower legs or perhaps the whole leg, the belly, the chest or bib area which may have very long guard hair, and sometimes the face and/or neck. As a result, there is a lot of guard hair in thirds, and the non-guard fiber can be very coarse relative to the prime blanket on the same animal. The fiber varies greatly in texture and length. There is no confusing alpaca thirds with prime blanket fiber. When I say mixed thirds, I'm talking about thirds from a number of different alpacas. This fiber came from a mostly white herd, and it is the owners practice to commingle thirds. I thought I was spinning up some off-white yarn. What I got was a rather pretty beige yarn with some nice color variation.

Thirds lack the softness and consistency of prime blanket, but they still have a lot of the other desirable alpaca properties -- warmth, strength, etc. I continue to think there are lots of uses for alpaca thirds and I keep trying to figure out what those uses are.

Today's project is replacing my slippers. I have two pairs -- both worn out -- of wonderful felted wool slippers. The best thing about these slippers is that they have support. I've been trying to find replacement slippers or house shoes, and I can't find anything with support. Because I have two pairs of identical slippers, I can take one pair apart to use as a pattern -- and re-use the rubber insoles that provide the great support.

What I'm doing today is knitting up a piece of cloth about 50% larger than the sole of the slippers in each dimension. I plan to felt that piece of cloth in the washing machine, then trace the slipper onto the felt, stitch just inside the tracing, and then cut out the pattern. I plan to repeat the process for each of the four parts of the slipper. We shall see if it works.

I'm using knitted felt because I have heard that alpaca thirds don't felt well. I spoke with Elsa from Longbranch Fiber Farm at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival last year. Elsa has a growing herd of alpacas and makes laminated felt. She says she has tried using the thirds, but they don't work well in her process. Her theory is that guard hair interferes with felting or doesn't felt as well. My theory -- and trust me it's only a theory -- is that if I spin and knit the fiber before I felt it, the knit fabric will have some integrity prior to the felting. I know the fiber will felt to some degree, but I don't know how well I'll be able to get it to felt. My thinking is that if it's knit and the edges are hemmed, it will hold together.

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't be including an anti-ravel thread like I found in those wool socks yesterday.

Ok, it's just an experiment. At this point, I'm simply knitting up a garter stitch swatch no harder than a practice piece. I'll keep you posted when I attempt to felt it.