More Skirting -- With Pictures this time
I've been doing more skirting, and I actually got the camera out for a bit. Skirting gets tedious, so I'll do anything -- including writing about skirting -- to avoid the process after a while.
Above is Sindre's fleece as it comes out of the bag after shearing. This happens to be half of Sindre's prime blanket (back and sides / first quality) fleece for 2005. The fiber was put into the bag slightly damp and allowed to dry in the bag which is why it has taken on the shape of the bag. Note the varying gray color of the fleece. Those odd light spots and streaks are hay and other vegetable matter.
If one is skillful, the above lump of fiber can be unrolled so it looks something like this. The fleece is unrolled to a single layer with the cut ends -- the end that was next to the alpaca's skin -- facing down on the skirting board. The tips -- the end that gets exposed to the elements when the fiber is on the animal -- are up. With the fleece in this position, one can begin to skirt out (remove) the vegetable matter from the fleece. The darker fiber in the lower left of the photo comes from Sindre's lower sides which are darker than his back. I can also tell from the location of the lighter spot that this fiber is from Sindre's right side and the fiber from his front is toward the right in this picture.
For clean fleeces -- and this one is NOT a clean fleece, the bits and pieces of vegetable matter can be picked out in fifteen minutes to an hour.
Of course, if you have a fine-fibered alpaca who loves to tip his hay bin over and roll in the hay, some of his fleece looks like this. This is from the area where the base of the neck joins the front of the back. Hay tends to collect in this region and I believe the technical term is "rat's nest". I may well end up throwing this handful away.
More hay -- if only it all were so easy to remove as this little piece.
And that would be a burr.
When the tips have been thoroughly cleaned up, the fleece gets turned over. This is what the cut ends look like. Some vegetable matter gets removed from this side. Most of what gets removed from this side of the fleece is second cuts -- short pieces where the shearer has gone over the fleece twice and cut the fiber in two places. Second cuts can cause problems in processing and slubs in spinning, so they get removed. In the past, I've thrown out all my second cuts. This year, I plan to experiment with felting our second cuts and I may make some available as "felting fluff".
I actually turned Sindre's fleece over for the picture long before I removed all the debris from the tips. Cleaning Sindre's fleece will take two to four hours and involve combing the vegetable matter from the tip of every lock. I use a metal dog comb which has no flashing to catch the fiber to comb the debris from the tips. A few of Sindre's tips are actually felted with the vegetable matter felted into the fiber. I'll clip these with a pair of scissors. When I tip-comb a fleece, I actually pull it apart lock by lock, so it doesn't turn over nicely as in the pictures above.
One of the problems with alpacas is that fine-fibered alpacas tend to retain vegetable matter in their fiber more than their coarser herdmates. The finer the fiber, the more debris gets retained. One of my struggles as a breeder is to figure out -- and implement -- the husbandry techniques to minimize tip felting on fine alpacas. It's a real challenge.
The finished product looks something like this -- except I cheated. This fiber is Sindre's 2004 seconds (neck and upper legs -- in Sindre's case, still good stuff) which has been tip-combed and is ready to be carded and spun. I'll have this fleece available for purchase at Black Sheep Gathering and if it doesn't sell there, I'll make it available on our website after the event.
As for Sindre's 2005 prime blanket as seen in the pictures above, it's still full of hay and I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I might offer it discounted at BSG as an unskirted project fleece or I might hold onto it and comb it out sometime when I'm not quite so busy. Either way, the wonderful softness of this fleece will eventually reward the patience necessary to comb the hay from the fiber.
Above is Sindre's fleece as it comes out of the bag after shearing. This happens to be half of Sindre's prime blanket (back and sides / first quality) fleece for 2005. The fiber was put into the bag slightly damp and allowed to dry in the bag which is why it has taken on the shape of the bag. Note the varying gray color of the fleece. Those odd light spots and streaks are hay and other vegetable matter.
If one is skillful, the above lump of fiber can be unrolled so it looks something like this. The fleece is unrolled to a single layer with the cut ends -- the end that was next to the alpaca's skin -- facing down on the skirting board. The tips -- the end that gets exposed to the elements when the fiber is on the animal -- are up. With the fleece in this position, one can begin to skirt out (remove) the vegetable matter from the fleece. The darker fiber in the lower left of the photo comes from Sindre's lower sides which are darker than his back. I can also tell from the location of the lighter spot that this fiber is from Sindre's right side and the fiber from his front is toward the right in this picture.
For clean fleeces -- and this one is NOT a clean fleece, the bits and pieces of vegetable matter can be picked out in fifteen minutes to an hour.
Of course, if you have a fine-fibered alpaca who loves to tip his hay bin over and roll in the hay, some of his fleece looks like this. This is from the area where the base of the neck joins the front of the back. Hay tends to collect in this region and I believe the technical term is "rat's nest". I may well end up throwing this handful away.
More hay -- if only it all were so easy to remove as this little piece.
And that would be a burr.
When the tips have been thoroughly cleaned up, the fleece gets turned over. This is what the cut ends look like. Some vegetable matter gets removed from this side. Most of what gets removed from this side of the fleece is second cuts -- short pieces where the shearer has gone over the fleece twice and cut the fiber in two places. Second cuts can cause problems in processing and slubs in spinning, so they get removed. In the past, I've thrown out all my second cuts. This year, I plan to experiment with felting our second cuts and I may make some available as "felting fluff".
I actually turned Sindre's fleece over for the picture long before I removed all the debris from the tips. Cleaning Sindre's fleece will take two to four hours and involve combing the vegetable matter from the tip of every lock. I use a metal dog comb which has no flashing to catch the fiber to comb the debris from the tips. A few of Sindre's tips are actually felted with the vegetable matter felted into the fiber. I'll clip these with a pair of scissors. When I tip-comb a fleece, I actually pull it apart lock by lock, so it doesn't turn over nicely as in the pictures above.
One of the problems with alpacas is that fine-fibered alpacas tend to retain vegetable matter in their fiber more than their coarser herdmates. The finer the fiber, the more debris gets retained. One of my struggles as a breeder is to figure out -- and implement -- the husbandry techniques to minimize tip felting on fine alpacas. It's a real challenge.
The finished product looks something like this -- except I cheated. This fiber is Sindre's 2004 seconds (neck and upper legs -- in Sindre's case, still good stuff) which has been tip-combed and is ready to be carded and spun. I'll have this fleece available for purchase at Black Sheep Gathering and if it doesn't sell there, I'll make it available on our website after the event.
As for Sindre's 2005 prime blanket as seen in the pictures above, it's still full of hay and I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I might offer it discounted at BSG as an unskirted project fleece or I might hold onto it and comb it out sometime when I'm not quite so busy. Either way, the wonderful softness of this fleece will eventually reward the patience necessary to comb the hay from the fiber.
posted by Upper Alpacas | 7:52 PM
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