Dante's Scarf - Part 1

A head shot of Dante after being shorn in May 2011

I make alot of custom items for visitors, customers and people all over the country who get to chose the fiber right from an animal.  Since we have just sheared (May 18-19), I thought I would share the process by which an animal (in this case Dante), goes from fluffball to scarf.  

Dante (beige male when he was 5 months old) with
his mom Sienna, Bobo (black male) and Lil Debil (brown male)

Step 1 - Shearing the animal  (although this is not Dante - you get the idea).  Click here for the blog post on shearing and to see pictures.

Step 2 - Skirting/sorting/grading the fiber - I have not finished my skirting video series - but here is a good intro to skirting by Wade Gease - an alpaca judge.  Click here for the blog post about it and the video. 

Step 3 -  Washing the fleece (this process is for alpaca, if you have sheep it is slightly different).  After the fleece has been skirted, sorted, graded and blown out to remove even more debris, I take the fleece that I will use for a certain project and wash it.  You can wash in a sink, bath tub, muck bucket or old top load washer. Whatever the vessel is that you use, the process is the same.

• Add detergent to the vessel (I typically use regular blue Dawn dish detergent).  You can also use many of the wool washes on the market or laundry detergent, but I like Dawn the best.  Just remember, you want to use the regular, un-concentrated Dawn without any of those enzymes boost chemicals. 
• Add hot water (so that you can put your hands in it without saying ouch) and swish it around to distribute the soap.   You are not looking for bubbles, just distribution of the soap.
• Now add the fleece.  Sometimes I put the fleece in a mesh bag (if I am doing more than one fleece at a time in a large vessel) and sometimes I just put it directly in the water.  Push the fleece down gently so that it all gets wet and is submerged.  DO NOT agitate.  Leave for 30 minutes.
• Take the fleece out - DO NOT wring it.  Just take it out and put it aside and repeat the wash step again.  Again leave for 30 minutes. 
• Take the fleece out - DO NOT wring it. Just take it out and put it aside.  Now fill the vessel with hot water again (rinse the vessel out if necessary).  This is the rinse cycle.  Push the fleece down again without agitating.  Leave for 30 minutes.  The rinse I typically do 3 times. 



Here is Dante's fleece in the sink being washed. 
This was on one of the rinse cycles.

• After the 3rd rinse.  Take the fleece out, squeeze (don't wring) out the fiber and roll it up in a big bath towel to remove the excess water.  Now lay somewhere to dry.  I sometimes use my skirting table, an old sheet out on the lawn or my new favorite, a drying rack I made.  

My process is typically 2 washes and 3 rinses.


Step 4 - After the fleece is dry (and it MUST be dry), we begin prepping the fiber by either combing or carding it.  You can use hand carders, drum carders, blending hackles, whatever to prep your fiber.  For this particular batch of fiber (Dante), it was so fine (approx 19 microns)and it had some VM in it and I quite frankly I didn't want to stand at my drum carder, so I sat and relaxed with my combs and hackle :) 

Here is the fiber all dry and fluffy.  At this point you can pick it or go straight to combing or carding. 

I chose to skip picking and go straight to combing.  Here is the fiber on my hackle.  As you can see it is all jumbled up, some  vm and a general mess. 

 

After combing the fiber looks like this.  This was combed off the hackle and then loaded back to the hackle and combed again. 

 

I then dizzed off the fiber into nice little roving strips.   Doesn't it look beautiful !!!

 And here is a birds nest of roving ready to be spun.

Once I have enough fiber made into hand pulled roving (or if you were carding it, enough batts), I then move over to my spinning wheel to spin up some yarn.

My Next post:

- Creating a pattern (the pattern will be available to purchase as well) 
- Spinning the yarn
- Setting the yarn
- Knitting the scarf
- Blocking the scarf

Stay tuned . . . . 

Some New Crias

Born May 18 - 21. First Crias in the new barn.

The Latest Addition to the Alma Park Family

Gus is a Mastiff mix - look at that face!!

Some updates on the new farm and store

Wow - so much to do and so much to catch up on!  For my readers both here and Facebook, I know I have been absent, but moving the entire farm is ALOT of work!  Now it is May and we are getting ready for shearing again and I have to say I am a bit overwhelmed !

Just thought I would share some pictures with you of the new farm over the last couple of months.  I haven't had any recent pictures, but on the first nice spring day, I will take some pics of the pacas in the pastures and share them with you as well.  For now enjoy pics from the last couple of months.

Soon as shearing is over (May 18-19), we will be working live busy bees on the store - woo hoo, that has me really excited! 

The Old Barn - Circa 1900 - Picturesque but not made for alpacas (Fall 2011)

The Road going to the new barn and store - some pacas watch the progress to the right (Fall 2011)

The barn from the boys side - plenty of room inside and out (Jan 2012)

The store (attached to the barn) 1200 sq ft yarn store and 400 sq ft fiber studio - can't wait until this is complete (Jan 2012)

The grass growing in the pastures and hay fields (Fall 2011)

Alpacas in the News (again) - CBS Sunday Morning

CBS loves alpacas - they have had several reports on them through the years - here are a few videos that I think are worth a look. 

December 1, 2008 --  Peggy Parks   (Johnstown, PA) click here to view - this video is a little outdated with prices etc, and does talk about the "emu bubble", but does talk about the positives.  (Originally on CBS evening news)

March 16, 2011 - Alpacas on CBS in Australia - an alpaca gets amorous behind the reporter - funny - click here to view.  Talks about the different types and is quite amusing as well.

May 11, 2011 - Not really news (and wasn't on TV), but a cute video of a sleepy cria - click here to view - just darn cute

March 25, 2012 - Amber of Colorado and  Bill and Lori from Harley Hill Alpacas in (Quakertown, PA) talks about alpacas for fun and profit - click here to view - this video is more up to date and talks about fiber, taxes, nutrition and thier "Muppet" like qualities. (Originally on CBS News Sunday Morning)


Click Here for a blog post on other great alpaca videos from TV and around the web.