Persistent Knitter

You already saw the true raw form of the alpaca in this post.

After some spinning, plying and skeining:

Looks good. Let’s see what happens when we take it off the niddy noddy:

Hmmm.. not bad! See here for a good explanation of twist, yarn and what it means in the skein (esp down at the bottom of the page) It isn’t completely telling because the longer the yarn has been sitting on the bobbin, the more the twist has set. It’s good to see that it’s not twisting back on itself really badly.
Then I did some serious washing of the yarn. It was spun without washing the fiber first. Alpacas don’t have lanolin in their fleece, and any pre washing is just bound to matt and felt the fleece. Alpacas are also not coated either. There was a bit of VM that was driving me batty in it. I chose to drum card the fleece (helps remove the VM as well as blending colors to make a more heathered yarn instaed of splotchy), then spun it semi-worsted style, by pulling/making strips of roving off the batt, and smoothing the yarn as I let the twist in. This will help keep down the fuzz factor some, but does make a more compact yarn. The staple length of the fiber was around 3″ - which is just a joy to spin.

So back to the washing. I put a bit of Eucalan in the sink. Let it soak. Squeezed it out and rinsed it two more times. Then I took it outside to swing around to get as much of the water out as possible. Back into the kitchen, I employed the “whap the yarn against the kitchen counter a few times” technique recommended by Debbie. As I was whapping, I noticed the water left on the counter had a distinct brown tinge to it. Eww! Back into the sink for a bit more eucalan and a few more rinses. Wow that water was BROWN. I think all the flinging/twisting/thwapping of the yarn let more of the dust and etc out of the yarn.

I managed to really foul up the skien by all this abuse. Not felt it, but it was a bit tangled. Some diligent work with an umbrella, ball winder, and then back to the niddy noddy produced this:

Obviously the alpaca is on the bottom. It’s approx 2.4 ounces and I would say lace weight. (2 ply. Yes. It took forever to ply). I plan on knitting a lacy shawl with it. I think it’ll be wonderful - the alpaca is sooo soft and even in this thin of a yarn will be warm.

The white yarn is about 4oz of a lincoln cross. That was drum carded and also spun semi worsted style. The yarn is much thicker (sport weight ish?), and is also a two ply.

Both of these skeins will be headed to the Boulder County Fair for the handspun yarn contest.

A close up: