Credits

When I signed in at work, I muttered to a colleague, "Gee, it's the 27th. What happened to March?"

"It's April.", she responded.

"Yes. I know it's April 27th. I'd still like to know what happened to March." was my reply.

That's the story of this blog at the moment. It's the end of April and I'm still trying to catch up with March.

Over the past two or three weeks, I have had some communication with some of my blog readers that I would like to acknowledge. This acknowledgement is long overdue, but I'm finally getting around to it.

First, I would like to acknowledge Elaine and Wendy from the UK. Elaine and Wendy own five alpacas including a suri called Mikey. They have just started a spinning and weaving venture and wrote to say, "We have had so many ups and downs your articles have been just the tonic we needed."

Elaine and Wendy were kind enough to send me some pictures of their excellent work, but I'm not sure I have permission to post those pictures, so I'm not posting them here.

They also mentioned that they have copied our nest stuffer and had green finches, blue tits (it's an English bird), and robins helping themselves to the fiber.

I'm pleased to share my writing and my experiences with somebody who understands some of the frustrations involved in starting up the fiber side of an alpaca business. Our nest stuffers are in the miscellany section of our on-line store.

Speaking of nest stuffers, ours has gotten quite a bit of use in the past few days. In fact, it's gotten rather fuzzy with tufts of alpaca fiber sticking out where the birds have pulled on it. Our list of recent visitors includes Pine Siskins, Lesser Goldfinches, American Goldfinches, House Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees, Bullock's Orioles and other species. Thank you Elaine and Wendy for sending those e-mails and I hope you are enjoying your alpaca nest stuffers as much as our birds are enjoying ours.

I'd also like to thank dragonflyy76 for posting the first comment to this blog. Dragonflyy76 provided information about a dyers list that I appreciate, but simply haven't had time to investigate yet.

If you have comments about this website, would like to chat about alpaca fiber, or simply want to exchange fiber craft blog links, please let me know. My e-mail is on the side of the blog and you can always post a comment.

Alpaca Open Barn Day May 14, 2005

For readers in the Roseburg area, the Alpaca Breeders of the Umpqua Valley are pleased to announce that our Spring Alpaca Open Barn Day will be May 14, 2005 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 pm.

We at Upper Alpacas will be participating in Open Barn Day. We invite you to come visit us, feel some alpaca fiber, and see why we love alpacas. There will be a drawing for a door prize, but I don't know what we're contributing yet. If you are at all interested, please come visit us on Open Barn Day.

Dye Pot Pictures

Here are some pictures of fiber in my dye pot. I'm using an old crock pot as my dye pot. We bought a new crock pot with a removable crock -- a great convenience for serving and washing -- and the old one got converted to a dye pot.

The dye I'm currently playing with is Dudley's Dip-an-Egg egg decorating kit. The directions for dyeing eggs say that for pastel eggs, you should dissolve the dye tablets in water. For bright eggs, they suggest using water plus lemon juice and for ultra bright eggs, they suggest water and vinegar.

I'm using water and vinegar.



The directions also say that for the pink tablet -- the one that produces the pink/red color -- to use water only regardless of the desired color intensity. I used vinegar with this dye, too. Next time, I guess I'll try ordinary water with the dye. I can always add vinegar to the dye pot. What I've discovered so far is that vinegar seems to precipitate much of the dye from solution so the bath looks exhausted. However, as the fiber cooks in the bath, the little bit of dye in solution is absorbed by the fiber and new dye continuously goes into solution to replace that absorbed by the fiber. The dye bath never looks strong enough to produce the strong pink color (seen in the top left corner of the picture in the April 17 entry).

I wonder what would happen if I only used water.

Skirting a Mess

That mess on the skirting board is Sindre's 2004 seconds -- fiber from his neck and upper legs that isn't quite as good as his prime blanket fiber. It's actually very good fiber -- and the reason I haven't done anything with it yet is that it's such a mess.

Yes, all those different colors come from the same alpaca -- Sindre -- the first cria born on our farm. You can see from his pictures that his neck ranges from black to gray to almost white, while his upper legs are still a different gray. That's the fiber you see on the skirting board.

Most of the light-colored specks in the fiber are pieces of hay and straw. You can also see some second cuts and other undesirables in this fleece. Because this is seconds, the length and softness of the fiber is variable. Sindre's blanket is very soft and has a uniform texture. For you alpaca people out there, his 2004 blanket (13 months of age) was 17.8 microns. Sindre's seconds range from softer than his blanket and very short to slightly longer than his blanket and not nearly so soft. This latter fiber is very long guard hair from the apron or bib area and I'm skirting it out of his seconds. Unfortunately, much of the super-soft fiber is really too short to use, so I find myself removing that as well.

(The bib is long guard hair found on the lower chest of camelids. Some vicunas have an exaggerated bib with fiber over ten inches long. I believe the alpaca's bib functions to allow water to drip off the alpaca much like the fringe on a buckskin garment.)

Sindre is one of those alpacas who very much believes the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. When the fencing allows -- and in his current pasture it doesn't -- he sticks his head through the fence to get the grass on the other side. When sticking his head through the fence, he tears up the fiber at the back of his neck. I'm discovering some of the fiber from the base of his neck is a rat's nest of hay, and short fiber. This fiber also gets removed.

Once this fiber is skirted, I'll probably offer it for sale as raw fiber. If you're looking for variable-color mostly gray alpaca fiber with excellent softness and can handle some variation in length, you might consider Sindre's seconds. I'll post a note here when I finish skirting this fiber and add it to the store.

Dyed Suri Rainbow

My main fiber activity for the past week has once again been dyeing suri alpaca. I start a pot of dye in the evening and heat it until I go to bed. Then I turn it back on in the morning and Pam turns it off for me once the color is exhausted.


Here you can see my week's production in the six colors available in the Easter Egg dye kit I'm using. They're vivid and when the're spun, they'll show a lot of good suri luster.

I'm still using the Easter Egg dye kits, but I've done some things differently this time around. The biggest difference is that I'm using washed and carded fiber rather than raw fiber. The second difference is that I'm making sure I cook the fiber an hour or so beyond dye exhaustion.

My normal procedure is to add a little soap to the dye pot as a surfactant. I found that steeping fiber in a hot, soapy, dye bath was much like soaking fiber in hot soapy water, so I got lazy and decided I could dye unwashed fiber. Sometimes it works. Other times the fiber doesn't take up the dye very well. It's a great way to produce certain effects -- namely a mixture of dyed and natural colored fiber.

After being a little disappointed with the color intensity of my first batch of Easter Egg dye fiber, I remembered what my friend Tammy, told me about washing alpaca fiber prior to spinning. She says that she normally doesn't wash alpaca fiber prior to spinning unless she plans on dyeing the fiber. She washes the fiber that she plans on dyeing so the fiber takes the dye better.

After thinking about this little tidbit, I decided to try working with washed fiber. I'm much better pleased with the color this time around.

Cooking the fiber longer after dye exhaustion helped -- particularly with the blue or purple color. You may recall that in my April 3 entry, I had a lot of red bleed from what I thought was blue fiber when I washed it. I still had a lot of red color bleed from both the red/pink and blue/purple fiber, but not nearly so much. More of the dye stayed in the fiber and I lost less color on washing.

I'm pleased with these changes in my dyeing procedure.

The next step is to card the fiber -- still waiting for a dry day -- so I can spin it. I'm thinking of a variegated yarn in rainbow color -- working around the color rainbow above. Of course, I may decide to simply offer the fiber in the Alpaca Merchant (our on-line store) as is.

Georgia is Kicking

Actually, Georgia isn't kicking. Her cria (baby alpaca) is.

Georgia is pregnant. She's due June 26 which means it's about time for the cria to start getting active. Said cria is getting active and it's making Georgia uncomfortable. It's rather odd to see Georgia walking across the pasture when suddenly her side bulges out a little. She'll stop walking and turn to look at her side -- possibly even nuzzle or bite at it as if scratching an itch.

In about a month, Georgia will start to be very tender with humans and she'll play kissy-face with us on an almost daily basis. She's usually sweet and easy to handle -- although she gave us unexpected problems trimming toenails recently. Right before she gives birth, and while the cria is very young, she will nuzzle us in the face and nibble lightly on our cheeks. Pam insists we ended up buying Georgia because she nibbled at my face when we first saw her. In any case, it was a good decision because Georgia has proved to be an excellent mother and a wonderful alpaca for us.

Georgia's due dates seem to conflict with Black Sheep Gathering. Last year, Donovan was born on Wednesday before Black Sheep Gathering -- with setup on Thursday and the show Friday-Sunday. This year, Georgia is due on Sunday of BSG. Hopefully, the cria will arrive early and healthy. If not, Pam will be home on cria watch and I'll be running the store at BSG. I'm really hoping Pam can help out at BSG because it's a lot more fun if I'm free to wander the show from time to time.

Alpaca gestation is 345 days plus or minus about thirty days. Females are re-bred two to three weeks after giving birth -- that's when they're most fertile. What this means is that unless something goes wrong, females end up giving birth about the same time every year. We could wait to re-breed Georgia, but July through early September in this area is very hot. Delivery in extreme heat is hard on alpacas and the cria can die from dehydration very easily. If we wait to re-breed Georgia, we get into the hot months -- or we wait until fall. So, even though it's problematic for Black Sheep Gathering, we will probably breed Georgia in early July an expect her cria in late June 2006.

At some point, we will rest Georgia by leaving her open (unbred) either into our fall breeding season or possibly for almost a whole year. Financially, it's hard to leave a female alpaca open for an extended period of time, but it's good for their health to do so occasionally and it can extend their productive lifespan.

Georgia's cria is kicking. Stay tuned for updates.

Carding

I got some carding done today. I know it doesn't seem like much, but at least I got to play with some fiber. Actually, I worked with fiber last night as well. I washed the last of my fawn suri last night and carded it today. Some of the carded fiber is already in the dye pot with another one of the Easter egg dye kit tablets. I'm dyeing washed and carded fiber to see if the dye takes more evenly.

I don't know that I necessarily want the dye to take more evenly. I enjoy working with the uneven look. It's just that I want to be able to achieve the even look when I want it. I'm basically playing with fiber to learn. I'll see what happens when I take this fiber out.

It was bright and sunny this morning and I started out carding the undyed fiber thinking I would get all my carding done. No such luck. For various reasons I won't detail here, I didn't get my carding done before it started to rain. I can't card when it's wet or raining because I card outside. The only spinning plans I have in my head involve the dyed suri, so naturally I don't have any fiber to spin.

Actually, that's not true. I could be spinning sock yarn from the same third quality fiber I used in my knitted felt experiment. Heck, I could even be spinning yarn to be used in future knitted felt experiments.

It's back to work tomorrow. It never ceases to amaze me how I have to work 50-60 hours per week to get paid for 40. Actually, I only work 40 hours at my job. The rest of the time is spent getting ready for work, driving to work, taking lunch, driving home from work, and recovering from a long, hard day at work.

Four More Pots of Dye

I've managed to use up all six dye tablets in the first egg dye kit. In addition to the blue and green described previously, I've got interesting fiber dyed a golden yellow, a rich orange, an almost red, and what can only be described as a wimpy chartreuse. I'm anxious to spin this fiber, but first I have to wash it and card it. I could spin it unwashed, except I want to know how much of the dye will wash out before I incorporate the whole thing into yarn.

Unfortunately, it's supposed to rain this weekend, meaning I probably won't get a chance to card until next weekend.

Stay tuned. Someday I will figure out how to have enough time for a job, alpacas, fiber, and a blog.

Two Pots of Dye

While running errands yesterday, I found some Easter egg dye kits 75% off -- or about twenty-five cents each. I grabbed four.

Each kit contains six dye tablets, so the price works out better than Kool-aid, and the technique is pretty much the same. Put the dye in the crock pot (the fiber crock pot, not the food crock pot) with a little vinegar. Add water to cover the fiber. Then add fiber. Order is critical -- if you dilute the dye after the fiber is added, you will end up with areas of very intense color and poor dye distribution over the rest of the fiber. Once the fiber is in and wet, cook the fiber on low until the water in the crock pot clears.

I did two pots of dye today using some fawn suri that's been sitting around the house for a couple years now. It's not great suri fiber, but it takes dye well and spins up softer than it feels as raw fiber. I thought the first pot of dye was blue, but it turned out to be green. I have some brilliant green suri fiber. The dye pot took about five hours to exhaust the color and there was very little bleeding when I washed the fiber. I'm really pleased with the color and the luster of the fiber. It's going to be fun.

I thought the second pot of dye was blue and I made the mistake of adding the fiber prior to diluting the dye. The result was I have a patch of lightly dyed fiber and a small area of very intense color. I'm not so sure the color was blue, because when I washed this fiber, it bled red -- quite a bit of red. The resulting fiber has one really intense patch of blue, some bluish areas, and some red areas. I'm not happy with the results. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the fiber, but a second trip through the dye pot isn't out of the question.