Naughty Puppies Won't Spin
I spent some time this morning playing with the Naughty Puppies blend trying to figure out what I should do with it.
My goal was to have uneven coloration in the blend, but I've expressed reservations about this because of the difference in texture between the black baby suri and the gray huacaya.
The black baby suri is very fine. Like all suri, it is slick. There's a lot of short staple fiber in the mixture -- partly because this is seconds and seconds have variable staple length and partly because of breakage during the de-felting process. There is no question that I broke fiber while de-felting the suri. I really don't think I broke nearly enough to explain its current state.
So, trying to spin this fiber is very challenging. First, I tried to spin medium-fine. I set the brake loose and treadled fairly quickly. It didn't work. I couldn't draft the fiber evenly. When the strand wasn't breaking from overspinning, it was breaking from undertwisting. I ended up pulling the yarn off the wheel in six-inch segments. It won't do to sell a roving in this condition -- customer will never come back and my never try spinning alpaca again.
Next, I tried spinning blends with various amounts of the gray huacaya fiber -- integrated using various non-uniform integration methods. In this particular case, the gray huacaya fiber is actually longer than most of the suri fibers. When I was spinning fiber with the gray huacaya well integrated, spinning was easier. However, I said non-uniform integration. Within a few feet of yarn, I would go from mostly huacaya to almost pure suri -- and the difference in the roving and drafting was more than my hands were able to adjust to.
After trying the thinner yarns -- to the point of spinning with the brake off -- I decided to try thicker yarns. I clamped the brake on and started trying a fat single. I found the black suri alone did much better as an overtwisted fat single than anything else I tried. The blended sections don't do too badly as a fat single. I couldn't get an even fat single and I had to use two hands to draft -- here I am getting a slubby, bumpy, and fuzzy fat single while using a semi-worsted technique on suri.
I think this is some sort of comment on the number of short fibers and possibly a suggestion I do just a little more carding to get those fibers better aligned.
My next idea is to card the fiber I've already blended several more times to get the huacaya and suri evenly integrated. In the process, I might get better alignment of the short suri fibers as well. I need to try spinning the fiber once I have the suri and huacaya evenly integrated. If that doesn't work, I'll probably card up the gray huacaya for spinning and suggest the suri become felt.
My goal was to have uneven coloration in the blend, but I've expressed reservations about this because of the difference in texture between the black baby suri and the gray huacaya.
The black baby suri is very fine. Like all suri, it is slick. There's a lot of short staple fiber in the mixture -- partly because this is seconds and seconds have variable staple length and partly because of breakage during the de-felting process. There is no question that I broke fiber while de-felting the suri. I really don't think I broke nearly enough to explain its current state.
So, trying to spin this fiber is very challenging. First, I tried to spin medium-fine. I set the brake loose and treadled fairly quickly. It didn't work. I couldn't draft the fiber evenly. When the strand wasn't breaking from overspinning, it was breaking from undertwisting. I ended up pulling the yarn off the wheel in six-inch segments. It won't do to sell a roving in this condition -- customer will never come back and my never try spinning alpaca again.
Next, I tried spinning blends with various amounts of the gray huacaya fiber -- integrated using various non-uniform integration methods. In this particular case, the gray huacaya fiber is actually longer than most of the suri fibers. When I was spinning fiber with the gray huacaya well integrated, spinning was easier. However, I said non-uniform integration. Within a few feet of yarn, I would go from mostly huacaya to almost pure suri -- and the difference in the roving and drafting was more than my hands were able to adjust to.
After trying the thinner yarns -- to the point of spinning with the brake off -- I decided to try thicker yarns. I clamped the brake on and started trying a fat single. I found the black suri alone did much better as an overtwisted fat single than anything else I tried. The blended sections don't do too badly as a fat single. I couldn't get an even fat single and I had to use two hands to draft -- here I am getting a slubby, bumpy, and fuzzy fat single while using a semi-worsted technique on suri.
I think this is some sort of comment on the number of short fibers and possibly a suggestion I do just a little more carding to get those fibers better aligned.
My next idea is to card the fiber I've already blended several more times to get the huacaya and suri evenly integrated. In the process, I might get better alignment of the short suri fibers as well. I need to try spinning the fiber once I have the suri and huacaya evenly integrated. If that doesn't work, I'll probably card up the gray huacaya for spinning and suggest the suri become felt.
posted by Upper Alpacas | 12:43 PM
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