In the pauses today, I worked on washing this . . .

In June, I was fortunate enough to swap all my counted cross-stitch patterns and supplies for raw fleece from Shirley. I gave the white alpaca a pre-wash while I was stateside, but didn’t have the chance to do more until now. The weather today was beautiful, and the forecast is for more of the same, so the stuff will have time to dry.

From left to right, there’s white Romney, brownish Romney/Romeldale, and the two screens on the right are all alpaca. It’s hard to really see how much fiber there is here, but look at it this way—each fiber filled a 1.5 gallon ziplock bag (the white alpaca was in two), and the grey and chestnut alpaca filled them to bursting.

Shirley had warned me that the fleeces weren’t as clean as she liked, and I understand now what she meant. The grey and chesnut alpaca were actually not bad at all and weren’t difficult to wash. There’s still some VM in them, but it seemed like it was mostly hay. The white alpaca, however, has been a bugger, and is still not entirely what I think it should be. It seems as if that particular beastie decided to go roll in fresh-mown grass and mud, and while I have the dirt and grime out, some of the tips are still matted and a bit greenish. I’m not sure what to do about it; I don’t think another wash will make a difference. My impulse is to flick it out with some dog brushes and toss out the bits that don’t want to play nice, then put it on the carder and see what I have. The two sheep wools cleaned up very nicely, but the white still has a lot of VM in it. I’ll let it dry and then tease it all loose; I think most of it will come out fairly easily.

This is the first time I’ve worked with raw fleece, and I’ve learned a few things. I don’t know how often I want to do this, but I’ve actually enjoyed handling the fiber in its unprocessed form, and have loved seeing the way it changes from unwashed to washed. And now I understand why some shepherds who specialize in fiber coat their animals!