Snail Spirals

Oh, what fun this is! I spent all evening yesterday and most of the day today playing with fiber, and I don't feel the least bit guilty for the housework that didn't get done. Here are the results, complete with a ridiculous number of pictures.

I started with some Buttercup sweater wool last night. As with the brown, this is the first carding (just picked and one pass through the carder), to get it ready for blending. Mmmm, squishy.



After I finished the red batts, I had to try a different fiber. I just couldn't wait to finish all the Corriedale before testing something else.

I have had a piece of an alpaca fleece in my fiber closet since 2003, a gift from a friend. It is lovely, and I haven't found the right project for it yet, so it has been just waiting there, like a treasure in the bank. Last night, I decided its time had come. I still don't know what project it will become, but it was time to graduate to becoming a batt or two.

This is a cria alpaca blanket. A cria is a baby alpaca, and has the finest, softest fiber of all alpacas (...beautiful...), the blanket is the portion of the fleece from the back and upper sides, and is the finest and softest of any given fleece (... incredibly gorgeous...), and this particular fleece is a natural colored true inky black (...heart-stoppingly breathtaking...).



Natural-colored jet black cria alpaca blanket. It really doesn't get any better than this. The staple length is about 4", it has a gentle but well defined crimp, has no guard hair at all, and is so incredibly soft that you can't even really feel it. The carder did a great job. I picked the locks open and sent it through three times, and the result is a thick, puffy, even batt of pure deliciousness. It is so black and soft and non-reflective that it looks like a black hole in all the pictures I took. It looks like that in real life, too.

Ability to card super fine alpaca: Check. Huge success. Hooray!

Today, I did another batch of Buttercup's wool, this time one of the two chartreuse batches.



Again, one time through the carder. I picked open the second batch of chartreuse, but it felt a little greasy still, so I washed it again and will card it tomorrow. I also picked open the lighter teal batch, in preparation for tomorrow. Here's the progress so far.



After finishing that, I saw that the bag of black alpaca was still sitting next to the carder. I couldn't resist any longer. I needed to make a blend.



I weighed out 35 grams of the black alpaca and 15 grams of some tussah silk that has also been in my stash for many years (This bag of tussah never ends. I bought 1 pound of top from eBay shortly after I started spinning, and have been using it off and on since then. Every 100% silk spinning project I've ever done has been from this fiber, and the ball of top never seems to get any smaller.)

I started by putting a good layer of alpaca on the carder, probably about a third of the total alpaca. Then I added a layer of silk by toploading. Silk by itself is so fine and slippery that it tends to stick in the lickerin drum, and is hard to card alone. Toploading is just that: apply the silk directly to the large drum while it's turning. You lay the section of top gently against the drum and let the teeth grab it, while holding onto the other end. It puts a nice even layer down. I put about half the silk on in this first layer.



I followed that with layers consisting of another third of the alpaca, the rest of the silk, and the last third of the alpaca.



The batt looked like this after one pass. Not very blended.



I split it lengthwise into four strips, pulled chunks off, and spread them out into thin layers before feeding them into the carder.



You want the layer of fiber to be thin enough to see through, for maximum carding action and to avoid jamming the lickerin drum. If you feed too much through at once, it will let you know by being hard to turn, and fiber will collect on the lickerin. With the Strauch carder, when you get it right NO fiber collects on the lickerin drum other than short second cuts. Those sort of sit on top of the lickerin teeth and can be picked right off.

The batt looked like this after the second pass through the carder. The silk is still a little clumpy and not thoroughly blended, but I think with a good predrafting or pulling the batt through a diz, this would be very spinnable. Alternatively, use it as is for a textured yarn.



I was after a smooth blend, though, so I kept going. I split it into four strips and pulled off chunks as above, and sent it through a third time.



This is much more blended, though still not completely homogeneous. Actually, it looked a lot like Louet Merino/silk top.



I sent it through a fourth time, though, just to break up the silk streaks a bit more.



The finished batt of 70% baby alpaca /30% tussah silk weighs 49 grams, and is incredibly soft. It looks like tarnished silver.



Ability to card super fine silk blends: Check. Be still my heart.

Possibility of hyperventilation and dizziness from the sheer beauty of this blend is a real danger. Must remember to spin this sitting down.

:-)