Playing with fiber

Remember that bag of raw fiber I got at Knoblock's Prairie? I've been working on it…a little. It's a big bag. We weighed it today and it's close to 7 lbs!

My wonderful husband drove me over to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence just to get me wool combs last weekend. He had given me wool cards for Christmas, but I didn't want to wash the fiber before I processed it, so combs sounded like the thing to have for that. They were expensive!

But worth it.

So here is a series of photos of my first try at processing raw fiber for spinning.

Here is the fiber - right out of the bag

I've lashed the fiber onto the comb (we used a clamp to make it stationary)

Then you start combing until all of the fiber is on the moving comb.
Remove any short stuff left on the stationary comb, unclamp the stationary comb and replace it with the
moving comb that is now full of fiber. And comb again. Repeat until all the fibers are straight.

Here's the way it looks when it's fluffy and combed - a lot like the hair on a troll doll :-)

Now comes the fascinating part. You make a point and slowly pull until it feels it might pull loose.
Then grab again close to the fluff and pull again. It just keeps coming!

See? It turns into this long, silky, lighter-than-air snake of fiber.

Even rolled up it is about the softest stuff I've every felt.
It's really why I fell in love with alpacas.

Then I just spin. Today I've soaked the yarn to set the twist.

I continued combing several batches until I'd gone through about half of the black fiber Rose Ann Knoblock gave me. My drop spindle was over half full when I was finished spinning it all.

This will be a nice addition to the hat that I'm making with all my first tries at hand-spun alpaca fiber. 

I'll probably have to debut my novice creation next fall. Judging by today's weather Spring is here!