September -Fleece of the Month

This months fleece is an Australian Alpaca - this fleece was a gift, and if i’m honest, not one I would have chosen myself. It will be a challenge!

Notable pros and cons:

  • This fleece is a whopping 1.4kg, but the staple length is the most widely varied I have ever seen, from 2- 5cm (these 2cm pieces are not second cuts either); the advertised staple length was 6 cm. Staple variance is not something that has ever bothered me, until this fleece.

  • It does have fairly low VM (vegetable matter).

  • The colour is very salt and pepper grey, with some pure white flecks, and some chocolate pieces mixed in.

  • It feels quite varied in micron count too, with some I estimate to be around 17, and other sections more like 22! I’s almost like there are bits and pieces from different alpacas.

I decided a thick/thin, fine art yarn, and slightly woollen single, then a slightly textured -standard 2 ply. This will be a challenging spin for me. The thought of spinning anything “woollen” has not crossed my mind in over 10 years. But I think its the only way to go with this “bits of this, bits of that”) alpaca. Maybe whatever project comes out of this, I will have to call it ‘Bitsy’ or ‘Bitsa’….

Spin details:

  • Schacht Matchless, scotch tension, high ratio,

  • Prep: I opted not to wash this fleece first as I would be mostly spinning outside, and the dust wouldn’t worry me too much. I did drum card the fleece to distribute all the wildly different staple lengths, and colours. The carding removed a lot of the dust.

  • Drafting varied, responding to the fleece itself, to create some changes in texture here and there. SFD, SLBD, SBD etc

  • Singles spun z. Standard 2 ply; s.

Enjoy the photos, there is a short video on YouTube you can see here. I will share any final projects and or products here, at a later date. At this stage, I am thinking of trying a circular lap blanket but light and lacey (I may add arm holes if it gets too big to wear as a scarf, so it can be worn as a wrap instead).

YEILD: 4 skeins 2 ply; 749m, WPI: 11 (8 ply/DK)…and one mini skein of chain plied yarn; 25m (one simply will not suffer two plying from both ends of a single!

UP NEXT: October will be a standard three ply; but a combination of 3 alpaca fleeces (3 small batches, each with their own colour, characteristics, and challenges; and then plied together.

See you next month,

~Karlie

Karlie SimsComment