Author Archives: lavalon
Surprise Rovings
Got a phone call from the mill that is processing some of my fleece for comforters today. I have five extra pounds of fleece! That is great news. When I sorted and sent the fiber to be made into comforters I was really concerned that we didn’t have enough. There is a loss rate when fiber is cleaned up and processed that can be as high as 20% so I tried to send them a pound or two above the amount required for the comforters. Apparently we lost less than I thought we would and I sent them plenty.
The fiber for the comforters was pretty mixed in terms of quality, some was very nice, other parts were coarser. I asked the mill and they said the 5 lbs that were left were really nice and soft and that the guys running the machines volunteered that it would make nice rovings. Well that is exactly what I had in mind myself!
So I am having five pounds of rovings made in addition to the comforters. The comforters are all spoken for already, but I will be posting the rovings for sale as soon as they come back to me from the mill.
They will be 100% white alpaca rovings. They can be dyed (or not) and then hand spun. Every spinner I know says alpaca fiber is an absolute dream to work with. It practically spins itself.
I should have the rovings back and available for sale by the middle of October so check back then if you are interested! I may have a few other goodies tucked away that I can make available for sale sooner. We shall see what comes out of the boxes we packed in Arizona.
Baby Irene Blows Into Town!
This morning my husband woke me up at 6:30 am, lights on, the usual routine for going to work. But it is Sunday. And it is hurricane day. I was going to sleep in! Why are you waking me up?
He says Ross called and we have a baby. Today? Really? With the hurricane blowing in? Couldn’t be worse timing. That cria isn’t due for almost two more weeks. Ross is on his way to the field to bring the baby in because it is laying in a big puddle, didn’t follow her Mom into the barn.
I was ready to write this cria off. I knew it was a high risk baby because we are 40 minutes away, Ross has never attended a baby before, and its a fall baby in New England. Now add the hurricane today of all days. Ross is going to find a dead baby in the field I said to myself. Very sad but what can I do?
If it’s a girl and she makes it we have to name her Irene I say. If it’s a boy we’ll name him Hurricane. Jonathan laughs.
Ross calls back. The baby is fine! He dried it off some. Mom and baby are in the shelter with the rest of the girls and everybody is penned in. Is it a boy or a girl? Ross doesn’t know. OK! We have to go see and look after the cria. We are on our way over, a 40 minute drive. The weather isn’t too bad yet. We can get home again before the really bad weather is scheduled to set in at noon. Zarah is staying home. We will have to come back.
The drive over was smooth, like any other rainy day in Massachusetts. It is also really warm out, wet and hot.
It’s a girl! She is still very damp when we get there so I spent some time toweling and blow drying her. It is important that they be dry and warm enough. She seemed to like it. Mom is attentive but nervous with the weather and the alpaca crowd in the shelter. Baby definitely wants to nurse.
We decide to move them to the hay shed so Jonathan and Ross get stuff rearranged in there. It will be quieter and probably drier, less chance of the baby getting stuck near the open shelter door, they can snuggle way back in the shelter. Also easier for Ross to check on the baby. I halter up Opal and Jonathan walks her. I carry the baby and Opal comes along humming and fussing. Opal is a good momma. The move goes smoothly and they are all settled in. Umbilicle corn dipped in Iodine, she is 13.5 lbs which is more than I thought, she is not a big baby.
I wish I knew she was nursing well but we can’t stay any longer. She is trying, and seems like mom has milk available although I can’t get any for her teats myself. Baby Irene will have to survive until tomorrow. We have no milk replacer in hand and we have to go home. Ross will check on her throughout the day.
The drive home was nerve wracking. Jonathan did great. Lots of tree debris down in the streets. Big tree branches down in a number of places and we had to keep detouring. One detour took us to an even bigger down branch and we had to backtrack then detour again. These are long winding detours on rural highways, not simple around the block things. One branch we ended up 4 wheeling around on the corner of someone’s yard. We weren’t the first to do it either. The last detour was down into Rhode Island and then back up through Connecticut. We were lost, the RI cop we talked to couldn’t help, didn’t know his way around Massachusetts.
So I tried the GPS on my phone. It worked! Unbelievable. It never works when it is cloudy and it never works out in the rural areas we were in. But it did. We were only 11 miles from home in RI. So we followed the bouncing GPS ball, encountered no more down branches and we got home safe by 11 am. One and a half hours to do an otherwise 40 minute drive.
Irene is blowing outside intermittently now, sometimes quiet, sometimes pounding rain and wind. Cable and power were up when we got home but are down now so I am composing this on my portable computer battery. I think my nerves are starting to calm a bit.
I’m hoping for the best for baby Irene in the barn with her Momma. I know Ross will do his best for her and she is dry and the air is warm. We’ll have to go back out to see her tomorrow once the storm clears itself up.
It’s been a big day already and its only half over.
Skirting an Alpaca Blanket
Welcome back to my second video in the series on handling alpaca fleece!
In this video I demonstrate and explain how to skirt the blanket of the fleece. The blanket is the part of the fleece that covers most of the alpaca’s body. The blanket provides the highest quality fleece and the majority of the fleece weight sheared off an alpaca each year.
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Full screen view of Skirting an Alpaca Blanket video
It is important to skirt your fleece before sending it to the mill for processing and hand spinners will also appreciate receiving a fleece that is as clean and ready to card as possible.
Blanket skirting steps include rolling out the blanket, bouncing and shaking the fleece to remove dirt, picking and removing short cuts from the inside, rolling the fleece over, removing hair from the edges, and pulling out as much debris as possible.
Puzzling Over Yarn Plys
I was just reviewing my options for having yarn made out of my beautiful baby alpaca fleeces that are so soft and I was puzzling over the various options on plying. Then I read the coolest information about yarn ply in the newsletter from The Coarse Broads…
What makes the difference between a two ply and a three ply is the surface of the yarn and how it reacts in different fabric structures. In knitting, when you make a loop to form a stitch a two ply yarn moves away from the center of the stitch, a three ply folds into the center of the stitch filling it up. (Bloom) In weaving a two ply locks the fabric in place while a three ply having a much rounder surface will allow the warp and weft to slip by one another. Rule of thumb for knitting yarns is to always have 3 or more plies unless you have a good reason not to. A lace knitting yarn in which a two ply moves away from the center to accentuate the hole that lace knitting creates.
In weaving always use a two ply unless you have a good reason not to, such as a rounder multiple ply in a rug weft is needed to cover the warp more easily.
Now I know a lot more about how to select the options I want to offer on yarn based on how much yarn is purchased from me for knitting & crocheting of heavier vs. lace type projects. I also know that I definitely do want to have some two ply because I personally do weaving. I can also pass this information along in the product information when I post the yarn for sale.
It is so cool when the universe brings me the answers to questions I am formulating!
Simple Fleece Skirting Table
To construct a skirting table 4 foot by 6 foot you need the following materials. This table will be big enough to roll out half of an alpaca blanket to work on. This table top should cost about $50 to assemble.
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Full screen view of The Skirting Table video
Three quarter inch PVC pipe – half inch is too flimsy to create a frame.
- 2 ten foot lengths and 1 five foot length
- 4 elbow connectors
- 2 tee connectors
Roll of 1 inch chicken wire 4 foot wide – three feet really isn’t enough; sometimes the 4 foot wide is tricky to find so pre-shop this before you get on the road.
20 short zip ties – a few extra wouldn’t be a bad idea, they come in packages and are inexpensive.
You will also need a PVC cutter, some wire clippers, some scissors, and something to weight down the corners of the wire (bricks, toolboxes, what have you.)
If you don’t have a PVC cutter, the store you acquire the pipe from may be willing to cut it for you. Smaller hardware stores tend to be happy to provide this service as opposed to a Home Depot or Lowes. So if you need your pipe cut, find a smaller store to shop at.
The PVC pipe will make a rectangular frame plus a cross bar. Cut the two ten foot PVC lengths into a 4 foot and 6 foot length. Now cut each the 6 foot lengths into two 3 foot lengths. Cut the 5 foot length down to 4 feet. The three 4 foot lengths are the end and cross bar pieces. The four 3 foot pieces become the six foot sides with the tee connector between them.
Now build the frame.
It is optional to glue the PVC pieces together. We did not glue ours and we have to be a little careful when we move it to insure the pipe doesn’t spin in the connectors and warp the shape of the table. However we also have the advantage that we could disassemble the table for storage at only the cost of new zip ties when we are ready to use it again. We also saved some money and trouble on the glue too.
It helps to have a second pair of hands when working with the wire as it is going to tend to want to roll-up again.
Roll the chicken wire out about 7 feet long. Weight down the corners. Set the PVC frame on top of it. Leave some extra wire at each end so you can cut it off at a preferred spot and bend it down around the PVC. Secure the wire to the frame with three zip ties along one end, one at each corner and one in the middle. Clip the wire off at a point in the wire where it will not tend to fray and come apart. Bend the poke ends to conform around the PVC as much as possible. Cut the zip tie tails off with scissors.
Now stretch the wire to the other end as best you can. It doesn’t have to be taunt, but you don’t want to leave too much extra. Pull the wire reasonable tight around the other end and repeat the zip tie process. Install five or six zip ties along each side and clip their tails.
Turn the table over so that the cross-bar is underneath the wire. You now have a skirting table top ready to work on.
The table top can be propped up at the corners on a set of four TV. tables or along each end on saw horses. We do not recommend using PVC to form legs as this yields a very flimsy structure that will wobble every time you bump into it.
Happy Skirting!