Alpaca wool

In this excerpt from Donna M. Rudd’s article “Spinning Alpaca’s Natural Colors,” learn eight favorite methods for spinning naturally colored alpaca fiber.

Remarkable for its softness alpaca is one of those fibres that feels incredibly luxurious to knit and to wear. Over the last 10 years it has gained popularity

This article is a part of Yarn 101 series ⟶ Types of Yarn. ◉ Source of these fibers are domesticated animals, such as goats, sheep, camelids or rabbits. In this category you will find yarn such as wool, cashmere, angora, mohair, silk and more. These fibers are much more elastic and warm than plant-sourced yarns.

We started raising alpacas about 10 years ago. Being a knitter and crocheter, I was very interested in using the wool from our animals in my projects. After our first shearing, I looked at their dirty fleece and thought, “What am I supposed to do with that?” I have figured out a few things over the years. Even if you don’t have your own animals it is much less expensive to buy the raw fiber from the farmer and prep it for spinning yourself. This 4 bucket method for cleaning the fleece is the…

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I have been hand-processing my Alpaca's fiber since 2006. I thought I would share with you how I do it. Alpaca fiber does not have any lanolin in it, but it does have a lot of dust and dirt from them rolling in their dust bowls as you can see in the picture below. During the shearing process we collect the fiber in three different bags. The main blanket, is tagged with the alpaca's name and number 1. The neck and some of the other fiber as number 2 in a separate bag. Then the leg fibers go…

Isager Eco Soft consists of 56% Alpaca and 44% Organic Pima Cotton. The yarn has a fluffy structure, it is undyed and in natural colours.

FLUFFfibers BFL in the Sticks and Stones colorway. I decided to to a gradient spin for Tour de Fleece. Here is the fiber after I hand-carded it into rolags. The long staple of the BFL meant my colors got much more mixed up than I planned, but I did end up with a nice gradient in the brown and charcoal families. On Ravelry

When choosing yarn for a new project, it's important to take fiber into consideration. But in the end, what's the difference between wool and alpaca, and why does it matter?

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