Ever since I prepped the fleece I recieved from Faith less than a month ago, I have embarked on an unexpected fleece-collecting mission. I now have a total of 5 fleeces; 3 wool, and 2 alpaca. I never realised how fun spinning was! My studio space is getting cramped with every delivery from the mailman... I think the last of the alpaca fleece's I have ordered will be here this week, and then I think I'm going to stop buying for now...

I haven't been interested in knitting lately, not with all these different fibres to play with. I suppose this spinning phase has come at a good time, I've been finding it hard to get any knitting design inspiration lately, and after Christina, my mind just went blank. Dishcloths are about all I can manage at the moment.

This weekend I decided that I was going to make 'something' from scratch. I want to prep, spin, dye, and eventually knit something from this fleece! I'm going to start with a white alpaca fleece I purchased from a fellow spinner/alpaca owner. A skirted fleece is about as 'scratch' as I can get for now, not unless I decide to keep an alpaca in the back garden! The fleece arrived surprisingly clean; it smelt like a farm (the good earthy smell not the poopy smell!), very little VM (vegetable matter), and super super soft! I love how alpaca fleece has no lanolin (I only realised this when I first touched the raw fleece and didn't find it 'gummy'... then I googled it and got my answer YAY!), it made the prep work so much easier!

Alpacas like to take 'dust baths', so the fleece was quite dusty; I know that most spinners don't wash alpaca fibres until AFTER spinning, I have allergies and I didn't fancy having dust flying around while I spun. Diane, who authors the Spinning Shepherd blog, has a fantastic post that shows you how to wash a fleece without disturbing the locks. After reading it I put away the washing net I was planning to use and used some blue netting fabric I had in my stash.

Luckily, we've had a few rainy days and I managed to collect enough rainwater! The fleece turned out BEAUTIFULLY! It was brighter, whiter and much fluffier! I pulled out a few locks to see how long the staple was; it averaged about 11cm. I'm really happy about that since it's long enough to spin easily, and short enough to card on my hand carders. Ideally I would have liked to comb this, but I haven't got wool combs!

The rest of the post will explain how I prepped the fibres after washing; I just want to say that I'm not an expert at this, and this is my first alpaca fleece prep. I did a lot of reading, and I decided to flick, then tease.. I'm not claiming that my way is the best way, but it's the best way for me!

After washing, some tips were still a little muddy, so I  'flicked' the tips to get them clean...

I used a wire dog brush to fan out the stubborn tips (I haven't got a flick carder either and the hand cards were too bulky for this job!)

I got a pretty, woolly clump...

The next step is 'teasing' the fibres. Basically, you fan out the fibres in your hands and let any remaining debris fall out. I know that there are mechanical means of doing this, devices called 'pickers' (I'm in love with one from Thomas Creations but I don't process enough fibre for it to be practical!), but I'm working with what I have! I used a cotton canvas cloth to catch any falling bits; I know some people use newspaper, but I found that using a light fabric was better for me as I can see if theres any VM left...

See what I mean? I kept a lint brush beside me and gave the cloth a clean every now and then.. Here is a close-up of what I had popping out of my locks:

I sewed some cotton drawstring bags to store the prepped fibre in, I had a metre of IKEA cotton fabric and I managed to get 3 decent sized ones out of it. I still have quite a bit of fleece to get through, but I'm hoping to start carding this weekend... Can anyone guess what song's been stuck in my head this whole time?