Time to get back to the alpaca processing.  I have two fleeces: Neme and Isabeta. I have processed Neme before – very nice two-tone (brown and white) long locks.  Isabeta is all tan and has more coarse fibers mixed in.

The first step is to pick through the fleece and removed as much vegetable matter as possible and any other dirt and dust.

The rational is to remove anything that won’t eventually be spun as there’s no point in washing wool that will then be sorted/thrown away.  A fair bit of dust and dirt stay in the pile as it is fairly deeply ingrained, but after further processing most of this drops out.

The locks also have quite a bit of ‘second cuts’ where the shearer has taken two cuts at a lock and consequently left parts too short to process.  These are removed too.  Once a pile of wool is ready it is put into laundry bags and hung from the washing line out the back.  I then take the petrol leaf blower and blow the heck out of the bags which removes a large percentage of the dust on the locks.  Alpaca has no grease so it is not ‘stuck’ to the fibers like wool from sheep.  The bags are then put into hot water with a little Dawn dishwashing detergent and some gently agitation.  Two rinses follow and then they are rolled up in some large beach towels to remove surplus water.

Layed out overnight on some netting under a ceiling fan – the locks are dry enough for the next stage which is to further blend the colors together in the picker before carding on the drum carder to make roving then finally spinning.  I will be demonstrating spinning in Knoxville next weekend so intend to take a fair amount of roving with me.