Alpaca shearing

Abby and I helped out on a local farm shearing baby alpacas. The tips of their fiber gets damaged during birth so it must be sheared off so new health fiber will grow and make for a wonderful soft, squishy yarn. The fiber length is longer than sheep wool so is a dream to spin. It dose have crimp, but dose not have lanolin in the fiber. Alpacas don't secrete lanolin so after a quick wash it is very clean and has no smell. When I mix my angoras with their fiber I get a warm luxuries yarn that's hard to beat. After angora my favorite is alpaca which I hope to have a few some day. Abby is a naturel when it comes to these animals.

Playing with dye.

Tim was off from work all last week so not much was done around the house, but I did find time to dye my handspun yarn. All of the yarn is 30% Angora and 70% Alpaca. I'm almost out of my Alpaca (Chelsea) so my next visit to the farm I'll grab a new bag. Speaking of alpacas, Susan has lots of new babies, you may want to take a look. http://www.mylittledarlingsalpacas.com/ . Back to dyeing. I was not going for any special dyeing technique, I just wanted to play so I doubled the amount of dye powder I usually put in and came out with very bright color. I use the Jacqard acid dyes, my angora takes the dyes really well. Abby helped and we had so much fun playing with all the different colors, she dyed her own roving with koolaid and it turned out wonderful. I'll be teaching her to spin today after we finish school, she can't wait. She has finished her first scarf for Christmas and is now working on her next project. Both Abby and I have put in half of our fall garden and we plan to finish the other half this weekend. She will start training a baby alpaca on Friday for a obstacle coures competition in November. I'll make sure to post pics.