Art Yarn (Handspun)

I’ve been learning how to process the raw Alpaca that I bought from the farm earlier in the spring and summer of this year. To begin with, this stuff is dirty; albeit probably not as dirty as raw wool fleece, but enough to raise an eyebrow at when looking at the water in the sink and what’s left when it’s finished draining out. If you’ve seen my Instagram page (IG icon on the upper right of my blog home page), then you may have seen the washing pics.

Once the scouring is done, the hair must dry completely before it can be combed/carded. This actually takes awhile, and is best done during the summer months when it can be placed out into the sunlight to air dry with natural heat. I didn’t get to wash all of what I bought, but I did wash enough to probably keep me busy all winter.

The next step is combing. Combing removes all the vegetable matter that washing didn’t, and also breaks up the matts that may have formed from washing and drying. I hadn’t planned on buying combs, but I realized that I couldn’t process without them, so I had to.

At this point the wool (were you aware that “wool” is an across the board name used for all types of fleece processed for yarn?) is now looking like something that can be worked with, and is ready to be spun or dyed. I chose to dye mine because I like to work with colors:

The peach and violet are actual wool, and the blackcurrant, neon yellow and lilac are alpaca. I decided to do a mix to draw on the strength of wool’s elascticity. I made a 50/50 mix of Alpaca and Wool/Silk. The wool pictured is a Polwarth/Silk mix.

I call this colorway “Mid Century Autumn”.

I carded it up into rolags (pic on IG), and spun it up into a bulky art yarn:

The finished yarn is 4.3 oz, a little over a quarter pound, and is 115 yds. It’s soft and cuddly from the alpaca, which is almost like angora in some ways!

I’m already on to my next skein, and it’s a different approach to the same colorway.

Take care and thanks for reading 🙂