I spent the last few weeks of the summer experimenting with different fibre prep and spinning techniques, so I'm presenting my findings today...

I have a few fawn alpaca fleeces, and I dyed some a dusky blue and lilac.  Some parts were left undyed, so I got a nice bundle of semi-solid colours. I then blended the alpaca with some undyed soybean fibres and made some rolags:

Can you see the colour differences? I ended up with fibres going from a steely blue to dusty lilac to a golden brown after blending, plus the soybean gave everything a gorgeous sheen. Here is a photograph showing the finished skein alongside one spun from the 'plain' original fawn alpaca:

Steel : 80% alpaca, 20% soybean, 78g, 249m - 18WP

Just Fawn :  100% alpaca, 36g, 165m - 20WPI

I finished dyeing and plying the yarns I was working on here, I'm happy with the results overall, I just wish my bobbins could hold more fibres! I dyed the white merino a bluey-purpley colour and Nav-plied the pre-dyed merino. I think I'm going to stick with dyeing the fibres first, and spinning afterwards, it's not as much fun if there are no new colours to look forward to:

Purple : 100% superwash merino, 86g, 344m - 22WPI

Seaweed : 100% superwash merino, 100g, 398m - 22WPI

Then there's my mini-skeins of MORE alpaca! I bought some black alpaca which was really soft, but really creeped me out because it looked too much like human hair; I blended it with some light mauve commercial merino roving and got a very 'little emo sister' type yarn. Nav-plied again, I didn't love it, I probably won't use those colours next time. The other skein is a pure brown alpaca 3 ply, not sure what I think of it yet, I just got bored spinning the same colour!

Little Sis : 50% alpaca, 50% superfine merino, 48g - 21WPI

Just Brown : 100% alpaca, 60g, 200m - 21WPI

That's the most I've ever spun in 2 weeks:)