Tangerine Creamcicle Alpaca
Interwoven with the melodrama of lace knitting I have actually gotten a fair bit of spinning done!
I purchased some 100% Alpaca fiber spinning batts from Distant Star Alpacas at the time of the PhatFiber January box Chinese New Year. I honestly have no idea what possessed me to buy orange fiber - really! It's not like it's a favorite color of mine or anything. In person, it's a soft, subdued orange, sort of like the semi-translucent coating on an orange creamcicle. Being Alpaca, it's also mondo soft!
There is a bit of red angelina streaked on the outside of the batts but I suspected it would sort of disappear as I spun it. I didn't want to blend it with another type of fiber but I did have about 1/4 ounce of silver algelina and black firestar that had been sent to me as a sample. I divided the fiber in half and unrolled the batts. I spread the black and silver fairly thinly across the fiber of each half and rolled it back up, drafted and coiled it.
Try as I might, I just couldn't get the sparkle to thin out as I spun. I finally broke down and hauled out my drum carder. Because it was already somewhat drafted I only ran it through once but what a difference that made to the distribution of the sparkly stuff! Wow! What a lesson learned!
After that the spinning went pretty smoothly! I don't care what anyone says, I have yet to spin Alpaca without hair in it. Conventional wisdom says it does not need de-hairing but I beg to differ! Even Alpaca cria I've spun had lots of coarse hair in it that I pulled out as I spun. Maybe I'm just too fussy but that's my opinion. True, it's no where near as bad as Llama but to me, hair is hair and I don't want it in my handspun. Please don't think I am being critical of this fiber - it's gorgeous, soft and lovely to spin - how could it be anything else? It's Alpaca! LOL!
The finished skein is 2-ply, 5.9 oz (168 gm) approx 420 yds which makes it a comfortable DK weight. Twinkly and very soft!
Alpaca does have a hollow core and is more like a hair fibre Monica. Alpaca ..yes even cria can have guard hair but in many cases it is very soft and you can blend it together. That is what gives alpaca the lovely halo effect
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Very pretty! I love the process you go through to get it the way you want.
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