Baby Bunting: Work in Progress...

using this pattern:

from this book:
 
with my handspun yarn:

I brought my wheel to a spinning group last night and totally forgot the major component to my project... a core yarn! So I played around with core-less core-spinning. It's definitely one of my favorite techniques, but I prefer to use combed top as the base to spin the fluffy batt around - otherwise it gets messy. and tedious. and takes forever.

Here you can see the difference; 
Above, core-less core-spun. It's much more dense and confined.
Below, core-spun (with a thin nylon yarn). Super lofty and frizzy, seems like it will pill a lot quicker, but so soft and squishy. Also uses way less fiber!

The fiber for this yarn came from the aplaca farm in Florence (read more about that here). This particular fleece was shorn off of Joshua. He was a pretty clean fellow so I didn't bother washing before spinning, instead I shook it out, sent it through my picker a few times, and carded it up. The pink and orange wool locks are unknown bits from my fiber stash.

We'll see if you can notice the difference in the yarn once it's all knat up! 

How to wash raw fiber in small spaces

If you don't know, I live in a pretty small apartment. Okay, it's tiny. Maybe 600 square feet?

This makes certain things rather difficult... like cleaning tons of raw alpaca fleece.
 

There's a washing machine in the basement that everyone in my building shares, and even though I plan on washing my little human's cloth diapers in it (in six months!), I don't think raw fiber washing is acceptable in the shared-washing-machine etiquette. Besides, this machine is the coin operated type that is void of choices. (there is no "soak" feature)

So what is an Apartment Dwelling, Fiber Enthusiast supposed to do? This is when I decided it was tub time. (minus me, plus picked alpaca)

Here is my technique:

Pick and fluff out a bunch of raw fiber.

Place in garment bags.

Fill tub with warm water.

(there is no lanolin in alpaca so super hot water isn't needed)

Add a sprinkling of baking soda.

Mix mix mix.

Place fiber filled bags on top of water.

Gently! push each bag under water until it's totally drowned.

(not dead, just free of air bubbles)

Soak for 20 - 40 minutes.

(depending on how long I forget about it)

Drain! 

Then I do the same thing without baking soda.

And once more with vinegar added to the water. 

(baking soda and vinegar are amazing - click the links!) 

Here is one pound of clean, dry, fluffy, snuggly alpaca fiber. Next time I'll clean a whole fleece at once (2 - 4 pounds)

Super cute crias from the farm in Florence, Co 

Fiber Filled Weekend

A few weekends ago my darling partner and I drove down to Florence to meet a lovely family of alpacas and score some new spinnable fluff.

This gal had the best buck teef.

They don't think we're interesting... they want food!

Cute Littles.

Then we drove down to the Sand Dunes where we star-gazed, soup-cooked, and bundled-up for cold-camping.

We didn't get a chance to explore the dunes, due to a bout of (pregnancy induced?) altitude sickness. But I did get to puke into a jar as we drove away!

(I've only had altitude sickness one other time, when I first arrived in Colorado, and it is a very distinct, unmistakable kind of ill!)

 

Fortunately for me, we stumbled onto a HUGE fiber-destash-yard-sale where I nabbed a few skeins on the cheaps. 

And THEN ran into the Salida Fiber Festival, which I totally meant to go to anyway but completely forgot about!

Needless to say, it was a very unexpectedly fiber-filled weekend.