Alpaca

I have been afraid to spin alpaca by itself. I have blended it in with wool while spinning and I love how soft it makes the hand spun yarn. I'm knitting a hat I spun with white wool and black alpaca. It's so soft and pretty. But I have never spun alpaca by itself yet. It's so fine.

But yesterday, after I finished plying the wool-alpaca yarn, I got down the little tote full of the black alpaca I had carded last year. And I started spinning it. And I could do it! And it was fun and pretty easy. It only broke once so far. I am spinning it just like I do my wool, fairly thin. I am loving it!

I already have 2 totes of my alpaca's fiber washed from 34 years ago. I have used the white fiber in with my wool. But never have used Misha's red fiber yet. I threw last year's bag of fiber in the washer yesterday and now it's drying on the rack. After I spin all this black I will start spinning more. I need to wash the 2 bags from this year too.

This should be really pretty when it's spun. And I guess each year will be different.

I still have all of this years wool to get washed. I did wash half of Cameron's wool so far though. She's the black sheep. It really was not all that long though. And after handling alpaca, sheep wool is really rough and course. I may just have to buy some more alpaca from my friend Susan.

And my yogurt did not turn out. I did put it in the fridge just to see what it would do. I'll check it later.