Wet Felt

While I had the hot water, soap, and pan out on Saturday and because I was already making a mess, I decided to try some ordinary wet felt. I used the same fiber as for the handspun knitted felt and put pieces of the batts in the pan at to make two layers at 90 degree angles to each other. I didn't follow any particular pattern or set of instructions, but I approximated from memory what I've read on a dozen different websites and seen on a couple videos.

I think the batts felted more quickly and with less effort than the knit fabric. They also made a less even felt -- although I'm sure technique and experience have a lot to do with the lack of evenness. I first worked the felt with my hands, the beat it with the potato masher, then worked it with my hands, then the potato masher until the felt seemed quite solid. At that point, I put it in the washer with the second washing of the knit felt and then put it in the dryer. The traditional wet felt piece shrunk more in the washer/dryer than the knit piece did.

The wet felted piece is thicker and stiffer than the knit piece and much less even. It is, however, at least as solid and possibly less fuzzy.

Wet felting is clearly a faster method than spinning the fiber, knitting the piece, and then felting the knit fabric. I think the stiffness of the wet felted piece is an advantage for the sole of the slipper, but it might be too stiff for the uppers. The way I see it, if the felt is so tight as to be that stiff, then it probably will make an extremely durable slipper sole. I'd like the top of the slipper to be more flexible.

The knitted felt is more uniform and more flexible. I don't know if the flexibility is due to the slightly thinner fabric or a difference in the way the fabric is felted.

The next step -- ripping some seams to create a pattern.

Knitted Felt

I have felt and this time it is intentional.

Yesterday, I finished bound off my piece of knit fabric that was to become knitted felt and promptly tossed it in the washing machine with lots of soap. Actually, I put it in a lingerie bag just in case the worst happened. The first pass through the washing machine felted the piece slightly and made it very, very fuzzy.

The fuzz is due to both the fleece and the spinning. The fiber I'm using for this piece has lots of short cuts and fuzzy stuff. The spinning job was very hasty and I didn't take the time to incorporate or remove all the short stuff. After all, the piece was to be felted and I wanted some fuzzies hanging out to felt.

Anyhow, the knit piece didn't felt adequately on the first pass. I've heard that alpaca thirds don't felt well. Guard hair in the thirds and various other reasons have been given. At this point in the process, I was a little worried because of the "won't felt" stories I've heard about thirds, but then I remembered that Sindre's topknot felts right on his head. I had some felting, so I decided to persevere.

My next attempt at felting was to work the piece in hot, soapy, water with my hands. When the various instructions say lots of soap and not much water, follow them. The felt works better if it's damp, not really wet. Soap really helps. I worked the felt with my hands using a sheet pan to contain the water. When my hands tired, I used a potato masher and pounded on the felt. I could feel the change in the fabric as I worked it.

When I finished working the felt with my hands, I put it back through the washing machine, and then tumbled it to half-damp in the dryer. I got considerable shrinkage while working the fabric with my hands, and a little more in the last washing / drying step.

The felt is still very fuzzy, although not like it was after the first washing. I think much of the fuzzy fiber is guard hair, but I can't be sure. I can see that there is some guard hair sticking through the piece rather than being felted in. Most of the fibers sticking out of the fabric are almost straight which is typical of guard hair and unlike the typically curly or kinky huacaya fiber. I like the piece of knitted felt fabric I have created. The only problem I have with it is that I think I want the soles of my slippers to be twice as thick as this fabric.

Right now, it's sitting on my desk and I'm thinking about the next step. The question is which pair of slippers is the better candidate be ripped to a pattern.

Update: Binding Off

I discovered that binding off really isn't that hard. Actually, it's rather like crochet.

I'm Done. Now What?

I spent some time this morning knitting away at the piece of knit fabric that is to be felted. We had some errands to run. Pam drove while I knit. I wonder what other drivers think to see her driving while I'm sitting in the front seat knitting. Usually the gender roles are reversed. I know some of the guys at the filling station -- Oregon doesn't allow self-serve gas stations -- look rather askance at me. I don't care and they don't have alpacas.

Anyhow, here I am realizing I have this length of knit fabric that is now as long as I need it to be. I'm done, right? Well, it turns out it's not quite that simple. You see, I've still got a knitting needle stuck in the fabric with all these loops over the needle. If I pull the needle out, the knitting is likely to unravel during the felting process. I've got to do something with this end before I pull the needle out. In the past, I've made nothing but practice pieces -- which I have always ripped to prepare the yarn for re-use.

Off I went in search of my Susan Bates learn to knit booklet that came with my knitting needles. I see "Step 3 -- Binding Off".

So that's what they're talking about in these blogs. When they're binding off, it means they're taking the work off the needles.

Here I am working with handspun alpaca and I don't know how to bind off. Fortunately, it's low-grade (third quality) alpaca, hastily spun, and intended for felting so I have a little room for error. How much error and how much room, however, I have no idea.

I guess I'm about to learn how to bind off.

The Knitting Continues

Knitting on the knitted felt experiment continues. I'm using a basic garter stitch. My gauge is quite consistent which surprises me given I'm working with an inconsistent handspun yarn and I have had lots of problems maintaining gauge on consistent commercial acrylic.

It is odd to be working with alpaca this coarse. It doesn't feel like alpaca, it feels like a not very soft wool. The knitting actually looks good -- much to my surprise. I keep expecting it to feel like good alpaca and it just doesn't. The coarse feeling is to be expected from lower grades of fiber full of guard hair, short cuts, and other undesirables. It's just that my hands have become accustomed to working with the good stuff and when my eyes see alpaca, my hands expect to feel alpaca.

A pleasant surprise is how stretchy the fabric is. One doesn't notice stretchiness and give in the yarn as much when crocheting as when knitting. I've been working to put more "bounce" in my handspun and I find this yarn has a lot more stretch or give to it than the commercial acrylic I have been practicing with. As a result, the knit fabric also has a lot of give to it. Partly this is because garter stitch is a fairly stretchy pattern, but some of it has to do with my spinning. It's nice to know that in a hastily spun 2-ply, I've achieved enough stretch that the knitting works.

The only downside of the project is the amount of fuzz and shedding. I expect fuzz and shedding when working with alpaca thirds because there are lots of shorter fibers in the mix. The rather hasty spinning technique left many of these fuzzy bits hanging out of the yarn which should help with felting. In the meantime, it's annoying.

The knitting continues -- using handspun alpaca.

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.

Deconstructing Socks

I have, since I was a small child, worn Wigwam Brand Norwegian Rag Wool Socks. These are warm, rugged, work socks. Although they are warm, they can be worn year-round under workboots to provide comfort and protect the feet. Few socks offer anything close to the foot comfort these socks can provide. These are 100% wool socks. They don't lose their stretch with repeated washing. They wear very well. When I was growing up on the farm, I think I got about three years wear from them -- heavy winter use and moderate summer use. With the less frequent wear I have given them, the pair on my feet is probably fifteen or twenty years old. These are not cheap socks, but they deliver durability, comfort, and warmth -- they provide a lot of warmth and wear for the money.

I contrast this with my latest $20 pair of alpaca work socks. I started wearing those socks in early December and already they show substantial wear. The elastic is going and they don't provide the same cushion they did when I first wore them. They're not providing the same durability that I get from my wool socks. I don't feel like they're providing the wear for the money. If my alpaca socks were as durable as my wool socks, I'd feel like they were a really good buy.

In fact, if all the alpaca socks on the market are built like this, I'm concerned about "alpaca socks" becoming synonymous with "overpriced crap". I'm a believer in alpaca as a luxury fiber and I'd really like to avoid that sort of reputation.

Studies of textile properties show that alpaca fiber is inherently warmer than wool -- warmer for the same weight or lighter for the same warmth. Of course, a lot of this warmth depends in the fiber preparation, the type of spinning, and the construction of the garment. In addition, alpaca has been shown to have greater tensile strength, and better abrasion resistance than sheep's wool -- meaning it ought to wear better. Certainly the alpaca breeders in the United States tout these properties quite aggressively. Wool, however, has an advantage in fiber memory which is important to holding the shape of a garment.

If alpaca wears so much better than wool, why can't I find a pair of alpaca socks that wears one tenth as well as my good old Wigwam wool socks?

It's frustrating. In theory, one ought to be able to make a better sock from alpaca than from wool because of the textile properties of alpaca fiber. We hype these properties, then sell socks that wear out in two months when good wool socks wear for years under similar use. The wool socks are 100% wool, but the alpaca socks need elastic.

When I look at my market, I see plenty of lower middle income individuals in our area -- many of them loggers and foresters -- willing to pay $20 for a pair of socks if that pair of socks provides the warmth, comfort, and durability they need while working outdoors. Good socks are important to foot comfort. People who work outside know this and they're willing to pay for good socks. We need a market for the coarser grades of alpaca and good work socks would be an excellent market. Why isn't anybody making good work socks from alpaca?

Some days I think all alpaca breeders are so wealthy they can afford to throw away $20 for less than durable socks. Then I think about my own situation and my alpaca breeding friends and I know it's not true. As breeders, we're not delivering value for the money when we sell socks and if you can't tell, it's making me angry.

I've done a little thinking about all this and I've started deconstructing some worn out Wigwam wool socks. I think the knitting pattern is the reason they don't need elastic, although elasticity in the spun wool may play a role. I've come to the conclusion that with the proper pattern, one doesn't need elastic in an animal fiber sock. I don't know what the proper pattern is for alpaca yet, and I don't know if copying the Wigwam wool sock pattern in alpaca will work.

Pam tells me I may be making a mistake in expecting to treat alpaca just like wool. Certainly that's an issue and many spinners/knitters make errors when they try to treat alpaca like wool. They are different fibers with different properties and they need to be treated as such. This is something I have to keep in mind. That's one reason why I don't know if I can simply copy the Wigwam sock pattern in alpaca or if I need to do something else. (Copyrights and patents are another issue I haven't looked into yet.)

I discovered the yarn is a nice 4-ply wool without a great deal of elasticity -- confirming my opinion that the stretch that holds the sock up needs to come from the pattern rather than the yarn. I also discovered a second thread carried along in the knitting. This thread was present in the foot of the sock, but not the ankle. In most of the foot area, it was carried along and knit normally as in knitting two strands held together. However, in the heel, the strand was knit and then threaded through some sections which made unraveling difficult. Presumably, this strand provides additional bulk in the foot section and the threading through in the heel inhibits unraveling when and if the heal wears out.

So where to from here? I'm not about to try to hand-spin four -- actually five -- threads this fine to make a four-ply sock yarn. I guess I could try making a two-ply handspun of the appropriate diameter. Another option is to send some fiber out to have millspun yarn made and for sock yarn, this might be a better option. The next issue is that my knitting is not up to socks. I know the solution to that one -- practice.

I don't know what the answers are. I just know I'm frustrated with the price and quality of alpaca socks and I would like to find a way to make a better sock from alpaca -- I know it can be done.

In the meantime, I have a nice ball of yarn recovered from a wool sock.

The Requisite Cat

Meet Sweetpea

It seems fiber people are required to have cats. Having recently written about the dog, and having no real fiber activities of interest to write about today, I thought I might introduce our cat. I'll be the first to say I'm not a cat person. I'm allergic to many cats. I walk into some houses and my eyes are watering within fifteen minutes. Other cats don't bother me at all.

Our cat is named Brandie, but we only call her that when we're angry at her. The rest of the time she's known as Sweetpea. Sweetpea is an older cat, and Pam owned her a long time before we met. Even though many cats cause me allergies, I welcomed Sweetpea into my life along with Pam. The good news is I can share a house with Sweetpea with almost no allergy problems. I cannot, however, pet her. If I don’t wash my hands within about five minutes of touching Sweetpea, I break out and start itching. Should I make the mistake of touching my eyes after touching the cat and before washing my hands, I pay for days.

For her part, Sweetpea isn't particularly crazy about me, either. From what I can tell, she greatly resents the fact that I've taken her spot on the bed at night, and for the first couple years of our marriage, she yowled all night long about the great injustice of the situation. Further, I'm rather noisy by her standards and not being a cat person, it took me a couple years to learn to watch out for cats while moving about the house.

After several years, Sweetpea and I have come to a truce of sorts. I won't annoy her by trying to pet her or play with her, and in return, she won't come mewling to me for attention. She'll try to stay out of the way when I'm carrying in firewood, and I'll make an effort not to step on her during that process. I will build fires for her in her fireplace on cold mornings -- and I'll make an effort to build the fire before she has to ask me to do and if she whines that the fire isn't hot enough, I'll poke at the fire to make it better. I try not to disturb her if she wants to sleep on the bed, but she isn't allowed to sleep near my head or my pillow. I will continue to tease her with wonderful smells from the kitchen when I cook, but the only thing I will feed her is carrots.


Sweetpea and her fireplace

In short, Sweetpea doesn't expect me to be a cat person, and I don't expect her to be a dog.

The New Pasture Revisited

I still haven't managed to do much with fiber. The new job is still wearing my down physically, and it's hard to get back on track with everything else when I'm stiff, sore, and exhausted. Still, I don't think I'm as tired today as I was last Wednesday, so I feel like I am making progress. At some point, I'll get the organizational part down so I have time for fiber and blogging.

We've had some problems with the new pasture. About a week after we put Drake and Sindre in the new pasture, we noticed Sindre showing signs of abdominal discomfort. We gave him the camelid equivalent of Pepto-Bismol for a couple days, but he didn't get much better. He was never off his feed, just uncomfortable -- in fact he seemed to eat more when he hurt. We figured maybe he was simply over-eating, so we put him back in the old, overgrazed, pastures. Sure enough, his symptoms went away. He seems to have been suffering from a gluttony stomachache.

So, now we have one pasture with wonderful lush grass growing very fast, and three pastures so eaten down they really don't have any grass at all. Something is wrong with this picture.

The best way to adapt an alpaca to a new and rich pasture is to put the animal on the pasture for only a couple hours per day and gradually increase the time spent on the richer pasture. It's a very simple procedure if you have all the proper gates and corridors connecting all your pastures.

Unfortunately, in our case, the old pasture and the new pasture are not connected.

To put Drake and Sindre in the new pasture for two hours, the procedure is something like this. 1) Herd the two big boys into the catch pen. 2) Put a halter on Sindre. 3) Try to put a halter on Drake. 4) Try to put a halter on Drake. 5) Finally manage to put the halter on Drake. 6) Attach a lead to both halters. 7) Open the catch pen gate and start to lead the alpacas out of the catch pen. 8) Notice that Drake not only isn't moving, he's threatening to spit at Sindre if Sindre moves. 9) Give Drake's lead a good hard tug. 10) Notice that Drake is now following, but Sindre isn't moving because he's scared Drake will spit at him. 11) Notice that Drake stopped because Sindre stopped. 12) Lead the two big boys back into the catch pen and close the gate. 13) Unhook the leads. 14) Go through the catch pen and close the little gate between the shed and the pasture. 15) Herd Drake from the catch pen into the shed. 16) Hook the lead back to Sindre's halter and lead him to the catch pen in the new pasture. 17) Begin to lead Sindre to the new pasture. 18) Realize the dog is out. 19) Put Sindre back in the catch pen and remove the lead from his halter. 20) Walk all the way up to the house and put the dog in her pen. 21) Return to the catch pen and Sindre. 22) Hook the lead back to Sindre's halter again. 23) Lead Sindre uneventfully to the catch pen in the new pasture. 24) Remove Sindre's lead and release him into the new pasture. 25) Return to the catch pen at the old pasture. 26) Herd Drake into the catch pen. 27) Try to attach the lead to Drake's halter. 28) Try to attach the lead to Drake's halter. 29) Attach the lead to Drake's halter. 30) Eventually lead Drake to the new pasture. Remove the halter and turn him into the pasture. 31) Wait two hours. 32) Reverse the process to return the boys to the original.

Yeah. Right. Put them in the new pasture a couple hours per day.

Gathering Chiengora

Sounds like a fancy way of acquiring exotic fiber, doesn't it? Actually, it means I'm brushing the dog. Chiengora (pronounced she-an-gora) is the fiber term for dog hair. When it's on the dog, the couch, or the carpet, it's dog hair. However, when you collect it and put it in the spinning stash, it becomes chiengora.

People actually save and spin dog hair. There is quite a cottage industry of spinning pet fiber to make memorial items from it.

To be totally honest, I've never spun chiengora. I do have a dog, however, and I have been saving her fiber every time I brush her in hopes that someday I'll have enough to make something with it. I also have some clipped Great Pyrenees fiber in the stash that I hope to work with someday.

From what I have read, combed chiengora is supposedly better to work with than clipped fiber as combed fiber is mostly undercoat while clipped fiber is everything the dog has. However, I don't think poodles shed and I have read that spinners enjoy poodle hair. Another issue with clipped fiber is that dog groomers don't shear like sheep or alpaca shearers, so there are lots of second cuts, short fiber, and impurities in the fiber. Since I have yet to spin any combed or clipped chiengora, I cannot report first hand experiences.



Our dog is Sugar Bear. She's 3/4 Laboador retriever, 1/4 Great Pyrenees, and 100% trouble. Great Pyrenees have a reputation of behaving only when they feel like it. Labs have a reputation of getting too excited and forgetting how to behave. Sugar Bear suffers from both maladies -- often at the same time. She's not a livestock guardian dog no matter what we intended, and we can't trust her in the pasture with the alpacas. She does have some protective instincts -- our place is thoroughly defended from squirrels and well protected from deer.

Sugar is a short-haired dog with hair only slightly longer than that of a Laborador retriever. By combing her for the fiber in the spring, I get the loose undercoat as it is brushed out and very little of the outer guard hair. This undercoat is very soft, but it's also so short as to be near the limit of my spinning ability.

I'm at a loss for how to describe Sugar's fiber. When I make a wool/alpaca blend, I say something like 25% wool, 75% alpaca. If I say the fiber is 25% Great Pyrenees and 75% Laborador retriever, will people understand that it is the dog that is blended rather than the fiber?

So anyhow, I sat and combed Sugar's fiber this morning. She needed brushing and enjoyed the attention. I augmented my stash with a little bit of chiengora. Perhaps by the time she finishes shedding in the spring of 2006, I'll have enough Sugar Bear fiber to create something with it.

Nothing Fun with Fiber

I have nothing new or fun with fiber to report as I haven't had the opportunity to do much with fiber for several days. I have two reasons -- or perhaps excuses -- for the lack of fiber productivity and blogging activity. The first excuse is a new job -- requiring somewhat more physical labor than I'm accustomed to. The second is the need to catch up on some other writing projects. On any given day, I seem to be able to do only a certain amount of creative writing. When I spend that energy elsewhere, my blog suffers. When a job takes a big chunk of hours out of my day and leaves me physically tired, the amount of creative effort available is diminished and the blog suffers even more. I hope to adjust to these changes and resume regular publication over the next week or two. My posts in April will tell how well I have done so.

Until then, enjoy your fiber and visit our store.

Colors & Pictures

As I've learned, taking good pictures of fiber articles is difficult. Taking good pictures of dark fiber is much, much harder. I'm not the only yarn/fiber/knitting blogger who has problems taking good pictures. I've seen countless mentions of the difficulty of getting accurate pictures.

My digital camera is almost ten years old -- a veritable antique. In normal mode, I take pictures with 720 kilopixel resolution -- pathetic in the modern world, but astounding for the price when I purchased the camera. I remember telling my mother about this camera when I first purchased it. She was rather dubious about paying so much money just to put pictures on the computer. Then she received the first e-mail with pictures of my new house and her attitude changed completely. Not too long after that first e-mail, her birthday present to me was every accessory she could find for my digital camera. It has been a really good camera for me, but I struggle when taking pictures of fiber -- particularly darker fiber.

I've been trying to expand the inventory available in our on-line store. Good pictures are one limiting factor. Sunday, in exasperation, I spread a clean sheet outside, put tablecloths on some tables, hauled the entire inventory outside, and started taking pictures in the bright sunshine. It was quite a production. I think I snapped over 100 pictures in almost as many minutes. Almost half of the pictures are usable and some new items should be available in the store sometime this week. Some of the pictures of dark fiber worked -- we will have black roving for sale soon. In addition, improved pictures of some items should also be available.

Bright sunshine really improves picture quality.

However, while almost half of the pictures turned out to be usable, many of those decent pictures were of the same item. I still have a large number of items that must be photographed yet again.

Which brings me to the second portion of today's article -- alpaca color.

White alpacas, like white sheep, are most common because white can be dyed more different colors than any other natural color of alpacas. However, alpacas in the United States are shown in sixteen different colors, and the international fiber trade recognizes something like 23 natural colors of alpaca fiber. The problem, as I see it, is that they're leaving out as many colors as they're including.

For example, take the alpacas Toriano, Drake, Carmella, Francesca, Joy, El Varon, Shyanne, Georgia, Barney, Obie, and Jubilee. I have had the pleasure of working with fiber from all of these alpacas and we have fiber from all these animals in inventory at the moment. They range in color from beige (Toriano and Drake), through fawn (Carmella, Francesca), brown (Joy, El Varon, Shyanne, Georgia) to black (Barney, Obie, Jubilee). The problem is that no two of these alpacas are the same color. Even the three black alpacas are three different colors.

Toriano is a uniform beige, while Drake's fiber fades from a medium fawn along his spine to white on the belly. When I card them, the rovings look superficially similar, but if you used them in the same garment, it would be like using two different color lots. Drake's fiber has fibers of enough different colors, it produces a slight heathered effect when spun. Toriano's fiber produces an absolutely uniform yarn. Finally, there is a difference in softness -- Drake is much older than Toriano and his fiber just isn't as soft. I can't just advertise "beige" alpaca fiber because there are subtle differences in the different colors of "beige" fiber I offer.

Carmella and Francesca also look like they're the same color until you put them next to each other. I selected these two fleeces for color and texture uniformity. Only after washing and carding them, did I realize the slight difference. But the problem doesn't stop there. I don't have two slightly different colors of fawn fiber, but three because I blended some of Carmella's fiber with some of Francesca's. The blended roving is a richer color than either Carmella's or Francesca's fleece alone, but it's yet a third, very similar, color.

The browns give me similar difficulties. The lightest brown fiber I have is only slightly darker than Francesca, while the darkest looks black in poor light. In between, I have a number of shades of color, so that while I can tell Georgia's fiber from Joy's very easily, I have to look close to distinguish it from Shyanne's.

Even black alpaca fiber isn't necessarily uniform. The show system recognizes two colors of black -- bay black and true black. In the show system, bay black is a dark brown that's so dark it looks black -- rather like French roast coffee. True black is really black, but there are color tone variations even among true black fleeces. The line between dark brown and bay black is really quite arbitrary and if you talk to ten different alpaca breeders, you'll get at least twelve different descriptions of the difference between bay black and true black.

In good light at a fiber show, all these subtle color variations aren't nearly the problem I make them out to be -- in fact they're probably an asset. At fiber shows, fiber buyers generally notice the subtle differences and get complete fiber lots. Color differences are generally celebrated unless somebody is trying to match existing fiber. Over the internet with every computer displaying color differently, and using an elderly digital camera to take the pictures, distinguishing different colors becomes a real problem. I'm still working on it and this is part of why I've been so slow in adding inventory to the store. I'm not sure I can show the color of Carmella's or Francesca's fleece with 100% accuracy, but I don't want my customers buying one roving each of Carmella and Francesca expecting them to be the same color.

I have always thought the subtle variations in natural fiber colors are wonderful to work with, but there are days when I am sorely tempted to start with white fiber and dye!

Giving Up

I have given up -- at least for now -- on my attempts to make the Naughty Puppies blend into something I can spin. It's a gorgeous color. It's wonderfully soft fiber. I can spin it if I give it my full concentration and overtwist aggressively. The moment my concentration lets up, the overtwist lets up, and the yarn falls apart. Worse, when the yarn doesn't fall apart immediately, it falls apart when I try to make a join -- meaning it would probably also fall apart when I tried to despool it from the bobbin.

I'm feeling sorry for the fiber and myself. This fiber is soft enough and black enough to become high-fashion evening wear -- some sort of lacy, but warm, scarf or shawl draped over a black dress at the opera. I'm feeling sorry for the fiber that I haven't done it the high fashion justice it deserves. I'm feeling sorry for myself that I might have ruined some fiber -- or that I'm simply unable to spin it.

I don't know that this fiber would ever have made it to a high fashion garment. The fiber is soft enough, but I don't know that my skills are to that point yet. I'm comfortable that I can make good yarn, but my knitting certainly isn't up to par. My real weakness might be fashion. As far as fashion goes, I'm a farm boy at heart. I loved the opera when I lived in Seattle, but I sometimes wore blue jeans and often rode my bicycle. One of the things that has to happen for me to promote high-fashion alpaca is that I have to develop my fashion sense a little better.

Maybe that's why I focus so much on the warmth and softness of alpaca and the softness of handspun alpaca yarn. Fashion can always use warmth and softness, but you don't need high fashion to appreciate warmth and softness.

More Struggles with the Puppies Blend

Pam and I are having an ongoing discussion about the black baby suri in the Naughty Puppies blend. I say it needs to be carded more to make a uniform preparation or I'll never be able to spin it. Pam has serious concerns that the fiber is so fine that I'm breaking fiber and making things worse every time I card it.

I understand Pam's concern. I have this tendency to view finesse as something to be tried only after brute force has failed.

There is no question in my mind that carding breaks fibers. The question is a matter of degree and what is happening with this particular fleece. I honestly don't think I'm breaking enough fibers with the carder that it matters. I have a hand-cranked drum carder with flexible teeth. When fiber jams in the carder, I can muscle the clump through at the risk of damaging the carder. It's better -- and faster -- to back the fiber out, tease the clump apart, and feed it through more slowly.

So the question is, to card, or not to card -- and what to do with the Naughty Puppies Blend.

I decided to test some small samples.

Yesterday when I was spinning, I accumulated quite the handful of short pieces of yarn. Since it's raining and I only use my drum carder outside, I started today's fiber adventures by carding those with my hand cards. In an eloquent testament to poor spinning, I was able to card these short pieces of yarn to a nice, uniform, rolag in about thirty seconds.

I tried spinning the rolag. Getting started was hard, but once I got a yarn going, I was able to spin quite easily, with decent uniformity and I think good integrity. I had a problem with joins, but this fiber may always be hard to join. I was able to draft much more evenly than yesterday. Spinning was still hard, but it was possible.

After spinning the carded yarn, I grabbed a handful of pure black baby suri and carded that with my hand cards. This also spun much better after additional carding. Joins continued to be a problem, but once I was going, I could spin.

Next, I tried hand-carding some of the blended fiber. Once again, joins were hard, but once joined, the fiber spun without much trouble.

I managed to pull about 50 yards of test yarn off the bobbin onto my niddy-noddy with only one break -- and that at a join. This compares to multiple breaks in less yardage yesterday. The improvement is substantial. The question now becomes, is that acceptable.

Am I willing to sell this roving for spinning if I can't spin fifty yards of it without a weak spot?

Am I willing to spin and sell yarn if I can't make 50 yards of yarn without a weak spot?

Can I figure out how to spin more than 50 yards between joins or can I learn to make better joins with this fiber?

I'm still trying to decide what to do with this fiber. It's just too soft and too beautiful not to use. I've never had a fiber I couldn't spin before. Felt might be the best end use. I'll have to think about it.

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.

Cleaning Fleece

I have spent the past two evenings removing junk from Sindre's 2004 fleece. It's not one of my favorite fiber pastimes.

You would think that Sindre being our first cria and his 2004 fleece being his first shearing, I would have rushed to make something from that fiber. If you knew that Sindre's 2004 micron count was 17.8 microns -- exceptionally fine and Royal Baby Alpaca by any standards -- you might be wondering why I'm just now getting around to working on such a special fleece.

There is a reason.

Alpacas love to roll. They also tend to eat with their heads over each others' backs. As a consequence, they get a lot of hay in their fiber. This isn't a big deal for 25 micron fleeces. Hay falls right out of 25 micron fleeces. However, hay sticks to the finer fleeces and the softer and finer the fiber, the more junk sticks to the fleece. In Western Oregon husbandry conditions in March, it's easy to identify alpacas with really fine fiber by the quantity of junk in that fiber.

Sindre's 2004 fleece is very fine and really soft.

Normally, I toss a fleece on the skirting board and pick out the junk. A clean fleece takes me 10 minutes, a dirty one a couple hours. With Sindre's fleece, I'm combing out the junk and felted tips lock by lock using a metal dog comb. Metal dog combs are great for working with alpaca fiber because they don't catch on the fiber like plastic combs do. I'm not combing the fiber as in fiber preparation, I'm simply using the comb to break open the felted tips and remove the hay. In the process, I am clipping the worst of the felted tips and also picking out any second cuts. I've seen other breeders do the same thing using a dog slicker brush, but I prefer the metal comb.

This fleece is a mess, but it's going to be wonderful when I get it clean. I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but it might not end up in the store.

New Pasture at Last

The pasture I've been working on since last fall is finally occupied by alpacas. We moved Drake and Sindre to the new pasture this afternoon.

I wrote some time ago that when you raise alpacas, there are days when you have time to spin alpaca fiber and other days when you're too busy raising the animals to even think about spinning the fiber. Today was of the latter sort, but we had enough fun turning the alpacas out into the new pasture I grabbed my antique digital camera and took some pictures. This entry is only about spinning to the extent the fiber starts on the animals.

Sindre and Drake immediately started eating, and eating, and eating.



That's Sindre in the picture above. Note how tall the grass is.



Drake

When I went out to take pictures of how happy the boys were, Sindre decided he would pose for the camera.



The boys also did some wrestling to celebrate their new home.



The girls are jealous. Chloe has been convinced for weeks that the new pasture is all hers. Georgia simply walked the fence in disbelief that the boys had new grass and she didn't.

In fact the girls were so upset about the whole situation that only Ipo would let me take her picture.



Note how much shorter the grass is in the girl's pasture. Yes that is moss in the background and it is taller than the grass. Despite what they tell you, the girls are not starving. They have plenty of hay in the shed. It's a jealousy issue. Grass is always preferable to hay and the big boys have lots of tall grass.

The little boys got moved into the pasture formerly occupied by the big boys.



That's Donovan on the left, Percy in front on the Right, and Del behind Percy.

They're still worried that they are in the big boys' territory and they might get beat up for being there. New places can be scary for alpacas. They were also rather curious about the camera, so I caught


Percy


and Del

with the flash.

Alpaca breeders and animal husbandry types will notice the dramatic difference in the height of the grass between the pastures. Golfers will note the girls' pasture is short enough for putting. Yes, we have a problem with our pastures and yes, I am working on it. The first step is to fence still more pasture, so there will be more complaining about building fence in this blog. The second step is to subdivide the existing pastures so we can start rotational grazing. It will happen, eventually. In the meantime, I'm going to work on a fiber project briefly before collapsing into my bed.