Today’s post is more conversation with an experienced fiber artist who is new to alpaca. The original dialog started in this post and continues today.

…I of course, couldn’t wait, and unrolled the fleece on the deck and definitely it is fleece that has been skirted, and then a bag of other separate…

You might take a good look at that bag of separate fiber. Is it fiber that has been skirted out of the fleece or leg fiber that was bagged separately during shearing? If the latter, there might be some first-quality fiber from the upper legs in that bag. It’s worth a look.

the fleece was reasonably clean I thought…compared to sheep at least, so I took a bit out, and soo soft. and then just spread the lock and spun a but from the cut end..spun it relatively fine and then plyed a little…so soft..but here are the things I noticed doing it that way…first of all the little bits and there weren;t many and they were tiny, but when I washed the liittle plyed skein they definitely stood out from the white fleece, of course, I will dye it, but I could see what you are saying about trapping the vm bits into the spun fibre…

Alpaca fiber is “dirty” in different ways from sheep fleece. I have read that sheep’s wool can lose 30-60% of the weight of the fleece during washing. I’ve never had alpaca fleece lose much more than 15% during washing.

Sheep’s wool contains a lot of lanolin – over 30% of fleece by weight in some breeds. Alpacas have body oils, but they don’t have lanolin. Body oils make up a much smaller percentage of the raw fleece weight in alpaca than in sheep. It is this difference in oil content that makes spinning unwashed alpaca so different from spinning wool in the grease.

Alpacas love to roll. Alpaca fleeces WILL be dusty. Depending on the pasture and the preferred rolling location, they may also contain lots of vegetable matter, the size and nature of the VM being a function of the pasture. This dust will mix with body oils.

When you look at an alpaca fleece, you will often see a clean band near the animal, then a “dirty” – as in dust mixed with body oils – band starting about 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the skin. The dirty region lightens toward the tip of the fiber as the body oils wear off.

I also was amazed at how much dirt there was in the water, murky, even though it looked clean, very dusty as it says it probably would be in other posts I read

My wash program for alpaca is soap and soak, rinse, soap and soak, rinse, repeat rinses until clean. The rinse between the two soaks seems to make a huge difference. If I soap and soak, then soap and soak, it takes about seven rinses to clear. If I rinse between the two soaks, it takes about three rinses to clear.

….anyhow, so maybe a good wash soak, etc, and drying is in the cards for me…and maybe carding as you said because definitely to pick all the tiny little bits, even if not many they stand out…would be a huge labour to do while spinning it…

I often spin with a pair of tweezers at hand for removing VM. Yes, it’s slow and picky, but it sure beats getting the VM into the yarn. I have a lovely bright white first shearing cria fleece I’m drooling to spin – or I would be if it weren’t so full of VM. It’s clearly a fleece to spin with tweezers at hand.

another question : the locks weren;t felted at the tips at all which is great, and the lock has a nice consistent strength but what I did notice which is unusual in sheep…is the cut end has little discoloration sort of slightly rusty and a bit compacted, what is that about, usually the cut end is fluffy and open this is sort of open but with this bit of other…? It did wash up gorgeous white, which of course only made the odd bit of vm stand out even more….

I’m not sure what to make of your description of slightly rusty and compacted at the cut end. My guess is some combination of chainsaw oil and sweat – chainsaw oil being used on sheep shears and sweat due to the stress/panic of shearing. Certainly, I have seen cut ends clump on the shearing table due to the combination of sweat and oil. I have seen the oil hold clumps together after the fleece dried, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen sweat clumps stay stuck.

Very dense alpaca fleece form definite clumps at the skin and this may be what you’re seeing at the cut end.

I guess I really don’t know what you are seeing, but the above are some possibilities.

also if I do card it, will the fibres be straight in the carding, they seem so fine and I don;t want them all jumbled up in woolen form , I like then straight and worsted if possible…..maybe what I will do is wash and dry it, then see about spinning in the lock, and then if that is too vm I will card it

Have you considered combing this fleece? I’ve never used combs on alpaca, but I know a lot of people who have with good result. This should give you good alignment for a worsted or semi-worsted and allow most small VM to drop out. The major objection to combing alpaca is the amount of leftover or non-combable fiber. Many spinners won’t comb alpaca because they don’t want to waste the fiber. The trick is to re-skirt the combing leftovers and then card them for a different project. These leftovers can also be blended with wool or silk.

….I can see I will have to perfect my really thin spinning again….and the plying I did do on the little skein looked great and soft so it was very rewarding…..and what will I use the other that is not blanket for? it looks pretty good to me if I can separate all the short cuts out of there

I base my use of the fiber on softness. Good blankets and some seconds are great for next to the skin wear. Other blankets and most necks make hats and outerwear, but they’re not good next to sensitive skin. Feet are tough, and I can use coarse work socks, so they get some of the coarser fiber and the coarsest stuff ends up as chair covers, blankets, or mulch.

You will probably want to be aware of not only textural differences between the blanket and non-blanket, but also length differences. Length differences aren’t a big deal to most handspinners, but they’re a problem for certain projects. Care must be taken that short, stiff fibers don’t create extra prickle by sticking out of the yarn. In addition, the hair on the lower leg can transition to very short and stiff, making it hard to spin. My advice is to look a that lower quality fiber, feel it, and see what it wants to be.