Several months ago, I visited an alpaca farm and bought one pound of alpaca fleece to try my hand at processing and spinning. It's been hanging out in a bag in my craft room since then. I've been preoccupied and my house has been, let's say, in dire straits since the farm visit and I guess I'm that person who can't move forward when I see other things that need done. Since then, craft room has been organized and the rest of the house is well on it's way to being purged of "stuff" so it doesn't feel so cluttered. Now, let's process some fleece!
Keep in mind, I have zero experience doing any of this so YouTube is my friend. I plan on documenting everything I am doing, including all of my mistakes, so maybe others can learn from them (I hope I learn from them too!). I opened the bag of pretty white fleece from Lily and wow...alpaca smell. It's terribly humid out so I plunked myself down in my craft room with the bag, another plastic bag and a trash can. The process of picking out debris (hay, sticks, poop) from the fleece is called skirting and that's what I sat in here and did. It actually didn't take that long because the fleece seemed pretty clean from debris. I've never handled alpaca fleece straight from the animal itself and it was...odd. And still a bit smelly.
Alpacas don't have lanolin like sheep so the whole soaking to get rid of lanolin isn't needed but this bag of fleece was in desperate need of washing. Welcome to YouTube:
I used a bucket in my sink so I could do small batches at a time and I also used Dawn to "shampoo" the fleece. As of this writing, the first batch of fleece is on it's 2nd 30 minute rinse. The water was pretty clearish after the first rinse but I decided one more run won't hurt. I have to remember not to agitate the fleece because I don't want a felted mess.
Since it's so humid out, I'll be spreading the fleece in the front foyer by the big window to dry. I had this terrible vision of putting the fleece outside to dry and watching the birds carry it off. I'm pretty sure that will happen.
I also got my spinning wheel set up, thanks to YouTube again. I bought a Lendrum single treadle and it was fairly easy to set up with the video and NOT with the instructions it came with. I have no knowledge or experience with spinning wheels and it would have been nice for the written instructions to assume that.
I have so much to learn and I'm finally excited to learn it all!
My wheel!
