Monday, July 30, 2012

Spinning Experiment

Oogy's suggestion was a good one--I quickly learned that the alpaca fiber needed to be carded.  I know that some spinners could work with the combed-only fibers, but I need fiber that is more uniformly fluffed up (I'm sure there's a real term for that!).

I've done an experiment to see how the spinning might go.  This is about 20 g of singles.

I plied it and made two little skeins.

Then I washed one in baby clothes detergent.  This proved entirely insufficient.  The yarn smelled worse than before it was washed, and it was still rather dirty.  A second wash in Dawn dish liquid made a big difference.

Next step, once the washed skein is dry, is to knit a swatch!

2 comments:

Oogyknitter said...

Neuro, this is an excellent use of the experimental control in fiber preparation! I'm enjoying watching your progress with this pretty alpaca. What do you think you'll make with it??

Teryl Jean said...

Hello! I recently processed a raw fleece, too. I used synthetic urea to scour it. It was still pretty greasy, but amazingly didn't smell too bad. The second wash was with Eucalin. My aunt uses horse shampoo called Orvis. It works amazingly well. Thanks for posting your projects, it's really neat to see another fiber enthusaist's work :)