Dyeing Frenzy

This is Celeste in full fleece. Can you see how lovely her light fawn fiber is? Last spring she sheared over 7 pounds of 4 inch long fleece.

Celeste was the first alpaca born on our farm four years ago so she's pretty special, a little goofy and I didn't think she would really grow up. She had a lovely cria in the spring of 2008 and is pregnant again by my own herd sire, Polaris. I worried about her being a good mom 'cause she is so silly but she has taken excellent care of her little girl, Lyra.
Her fiber is awesome! At the alpaca shows, we have what is called a SPIN OFF where breeders send in 2 ounces of fiber to be spun by a judge. Celeste won, not only the best in her class, but also best over all at the show. It's long and not overly crimpy which makes it lovely to spin.

So this is what I have been doing↑ Dyeing like a mad woman! The teal and pink/blue are from Celeste's seconds. There is probably about 5 pounds of fiber here.
I think I know why I'm being rather compulsive about this. I can control it and am getting amazing results. The other part of my life has been chaotic.
Some of you may not know that my 89 year old mom came to live with me at the end of August. She was here a week and fell and has been in Rehab at the Alma hospital since. I have been really frightened about taking care of her because she was scheduled to come home today. Well, yesterday, with the help of the social worker at Rehab, we got her a room in a nursing home in St. Louis. I think Medicare will only cover her stay for 20 days, but I'm incredibly relieved that she is going to have a safe place with better skilled care than I can provide.

Baby Alpaca - To Dye For

JR with his momma, sweet Sonata, right after his birth last year, September 19, 2008.

I came across the seconds from JR's first shear. If you are interested, seconds are the less desirable fiber from the alpaca. In JR's case, from his neck, chest, and belly. The fiber is usually different lengths and probably has second cuts. JR's fleece will probably never be as soft and fine as this first shear.




I have never tried to dye over a color as dark as this brown so this is another experiment - that went well.
*I washed the fiber in Dawn and the hottest tap water I could get. After letting it soak about 1/2 hour, I drained it, ran another sink full of warm water to rinse and added a big glug of vinegar.
* While I was washing and draining, I heated up about 8 or 10 cups of water in my crock pot and added another big glug of vinegar just before adding the wet fleece.
* I put into the water about 1/2 teaspoon of red Jacquard dye on the left and the same amount of Burnt Orange on the right. Then lowered the wet fleece in. I did a few pokes to settle it down but didn't stir because I wanted the colors to stay separate. They did....

This is about 6 ounces of fleece. I love the colors!

June PhatBox Contribution

This blog entry is a tribute and thank you to the purchasers of the Phat Fiber Sample Box each month. I thought it might be fun for you to see what goes into those tiny little samples that you receive from all of us Phatties.
I'll skip over feeding, vetting, shearing, and caring for our dear 4 leggeds and jump right to that big, clear, plastic bag of freshly shorn alpaca fleece.
That's white Pollux (Luxie) above. After washing his fleece, I dyed three batches in my crock pot. Our Phat theme this month is Oceanic so I thought blues for water, yellow for sun, white for foam, and brown for sand.
I didn't have to dye any brown and just used Polaris's ↓ golden brown fleece just like it is, well, I did wash it...

After all this is dry, it's off to the carder. This picture → shows you peeling the fiber off the carder. If you want more info about my carding go here. I made these batts in layers - example - white, brown, blue, white, or whatever my gutts said to add next. As I was carding, I tossed in some crystal, shiney angelina, and some dyed silk that's been laying around forever. You can be a little creative when carding but after a while, I think it's a little boring. I priced a motor to speed things up a little, but they are about $1,000.

I ended up making 5 batts and stripping each batt to 4 strips which I then drafted a little to make it spin more like roving. (Drafting-pulling the fibers out so they line up next to each other in a thinner little roving)

Then I wrapped each strip around my hand, tucked the end in, to form these little nests.

........and tied each nest with some handspun alpaca yarn. I created little cards on my computer with pictures of Lars and Luxie. They deserve the credit for producing such lovely fiber for me, right? And the buyers need to know what they are getting and who it is from.

The final step is going on line to purchase my postage and stuffing the nests into the bag. Oh, and tossing in a few lavendar sachets. Jessie, our PhatLady who does all the promoting, coorinating, and mailing, gets a bigger sample of what I send to say thanks.

Walking and Dyeing

For a couple months now my neighbor, Billie and I have been walking two miles each day down our country road. We try to do it in half an hour. Max and Cassie ↑ go along on leashes if it's not too sloppy. Then they sack out for the rest of the day. I'm told that some folks don't allow their critters on their furniture ☺
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I don't have a lot to say today except that I seem to have gotten the dyeing bug. Here's a few of my yesterday creations from white alpaca, merino, and mohair roving. I feel ok about using it up because I have 10 more pounds right now at Zeilinger's mill.
Four more ounces are cooking away in my crock pot, while four ounces are soaking in vinegar water.

The Alpaca Fiber Process from Humming in the Back Yard to Yarn

Orion (Slammie), Pollux (Luxie), and GunnyI'm thinking that it would be fun to give a very simple explanation of the process of making yarn from our alpacas. You need to imagine the step of shearing to get the fiber off the alpacas. I will have pictures in May when we actually do the shear.
This is what the raw fiber looks like. Our animals stay quite clean and free of vegetation because we don't bed with straw and I sweep up fallen hay everyday. When the 'pacas are inside, they live on rubber mats.
To clean the fleece, I spread it out on a screen stapled to a big square, and pick out the vegetation (VM) by hand. Dust and dirt falls through to the floor.
Then I wash it which I have talked about here in my blog. If I am going to immediately dye, I leave the fiber wet after a vinegar solution soak.


My favorite way to dye is in my crock pot. I sprinkle dry Jacquard powder over the wet fiber, pour boiling water over, cover and cook for about 30 minutes. This yellow and green isn't the fiber for the final skein. But this is ↓


Then spread the fiber out to dry. Riley Cat enjoys the drying too much so this usually goes into the tub in the spare bathroom.

The fiber can be spun as soon as it is dry, but I like to card it which lines all the fibers up nice and straight and makes the spinning easier. BTW, this isn't the fiber in the final skein either.

Now the fun part (well, it's all fun, but this is my favorite) SPINNING. For this particular yarn, I tried to make slubby areas and very thin strands. I added some of Rita's (Castleman) mauve Tussah yarn as I spun. Then I plied the single with Woolly Nylon serger thread that had some elasticity to enhance my slubs and bumps.
All this preparation for 50 yards of this ↓

Alpaca/Mohair Yarn Handdyed and Handspun

Only 2 more ounces and I will have all my handdyed roving used up. This yarn started out as 2 ounces of dyed up white Pollux, one ounce of natural brown Sonata, and a handful of mohair that I got from Edie Bowles at SpinningMoonFarm through her Etsy store. Edie was very helpful teaching me a little about mohair. My past experience was working with some not so fine stuff so I was a little negative. I carded these three elements together on my carder. Have I mentioned that I'm not really very fond of carding? And I do have a very nice Strauch that does a great job, but I just want to get to the spinning. The white that you see in the yarn are the tuffs of mohair.
Very bulky @ 8 wpi - 3.4 oz./95 grams

Sharon and Maple Dye

Oh, my, what a fun day! Sharon arrived about 10 this a.m., and by 2, look what we had created. Two pounds of awesome dyed alpaca roving from Sharon's white alpacas. Had she brought more, we would have dyed more. We had three batches going at a time - the crock pot, the broiling pan in the oven, and the roaster on top of the stove.
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If you don't know Sharon Winsauer, you must go visit her shop on Etsy called AuroraAlpacas. She is my "genius lace pattern making " friend. Maybe you have heard of her Dragon shawl pattern? She just got some awesome roving back from the mill that her alpacas grew for her. I think that she will be listing this in her shop soon, so watch for it.
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I am very fortunate to have fibery friends living close enough that we can have fun days together.
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I had just decided to let my grays grow out but kind of like the way my hair looks in this pict. so I don't know..... I'm on the right up above. We are outside my kitchen on the deck.

EtsyFAST is a group that I belong to that works together to promote Etsy. The FAST stands for Fiber Arts Street Team. We do a themed monthly challenge just for fun, no prizes or anything. The challenge for September was Apples. My thoughts when dying this alpaca roving was Golden Delicious Apples. I striped yellow, red, & just a touch of green and set the colors in my oven.

Crock Pot Dyeing

I have had a few folks ask me about dyeing alpaca. I have been using two methods, one in the oven and another in my "purchased just for dyeing" crockpot. Here goes with my crockpot method...feel free to contact me with any questions.

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I assemble: 2 ounces alpaca roving, 1 1/2 cups white vinegar, boiling teakettle, a heated up crock pot, assorted large plastic and wooden spoons, and 3 colors of powdered acid dyes. I am finding that I like the Jacquard dyes best.

I think that two or three colors are the most that I can use with this process.

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I add the stuff in three or four layers:

Layers: Circle dry roving around in the bottom of the heated crock pot, dot powdered dye with the end of a wooden spoon into the dry roving. I do this in an imaginary 3 piece pie pattern and always layer the same color above it into the triangle. Pour boiling water over the layer and GENTLY poke the fiber down. Add about 1/2 cup white vinegar on top of the water. Poke again. Continue layering all the roving, dyes, boiling water, and white vinegar.

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Cover and simmer on high for 30 minutes (my crock pot won't boil in this amount of time, which is good, boiling is bad!) I don't worry about the water being completely clear.

Now, the hardest part, Don't Touch! Let it cool off on it's own. Remember, it's alpaca and doesn't want to be agitated.

After cooling, gently dump into a drainer and lower into enough rinses of matching water temperature until the water is clear. Don't get rough or let the water run onto it.

The last spin cycle on my washing machine doesn't add any water so works perfectly for spinning out my roving which I then lay out to dry, smiling all the way.

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I am very pleased with the way the alpaca is turning out with this method. The oven way is basically the same thing using a large pan, dotting the dyes, pouring on vinegar and boiling water and baking for 1/2 hour at 200 degrees.

What I like about the crock pot is that it is very little mess and I can easily do one or two batches a day without it being a big deal.

I have become totally obsessed with dying! Before I developed my crock pot method, it was a big mess, time consuming, and I didn't like the results. Now, I can do a pot or 2 everyday and not feel like it's such a big deal. The fiber is retaining its alpaca-like qualities and I'm loving it. Loving it so much, that I want to spin it myself and not put it into my Etsy store as roving. Maybe I will get so much accumulated that I will think I don't have the time to spin it. I know that I should be working on a custom order, but this is so fun! Actually, I do force myself to do a skein for the order and then reward myself by doing some dyed roving. I have to do up another bobbin of that green above, ply it, and then work on the order.
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Son Rob left yesterday morning to go back to Pennsylvania and called about 5 to say that he arrived safely. That's just too damn far away. Miss him tremendously already.
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We picked up two more sheep yesterday at Brooklyn, Mich. , a just weaned lamb and a 2 year old ram. I feel so sorry for the little lamb. She, Phoebe is her name, is quarantined in a pen next to the ram. Apparently, it's a good practice not to put them in with the rest in case they might be carrying some illness from their home farm. Phoebe doesn't cry but just tries so hard to get through the gate to be with her friend. We purchased these two from Larry and Joan Egeler.