Category Archives: Videos
Alpacas of Avalon posts that include videos you can watch.
What Do You Do With Your Alpaca Fleece?
This is a video interview with Lillith Avalon where she talks about what she does with her fleece and the advantages of using a mill to do processing.
If you are interested in what we do with our fleece after shearing and skirting the fleece, or how much fleece it takes to make a pair of socks, then check this out!
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Fiber cooperatives are another option for having fiber processed. In this case you submit your fiber and the coop determines its quality and how they can use it. Your fiber is processed along with fleece submitted by other coop members. You pay a fee to go with the fleece towards processing and/or product. The coop will grant you credit for a certain amount of product to be checked out from the coop based on your fleece contribution, and you can then sell the product yourself. A coop will have selected what products they are going to produce in a given season so choices may be limited. If you only have a small amount of fiber or you have a wide variety of colors and quality a coop could be a really good choice for getting your fiber processed.
Fiber processing mills and fiber cooperatives:
- Zeilinger Wool Company - Zeilinger Wool Co. processor of sheep wool, angora goat hair (mohair), rabbit hair (angora), llama, alpaca, dog hair, and other exotic animal fibers. We can turn your own fibers, such as wool, into comforters, mattress pads, bed pillows, quilts, batting f
- A Simpler Time - A Simpler Time Mill is a Mini Mill that processes alpaca fur, alpaca fiber, alpaca wool, cashmere, silk, mohair, & llama.
- The Alpaca Fiber Cooperative of North America - The Alpaca Fiber Cooperative of North America, Inc. (AFCNA) is an agricultural cooperative formed and wholly owned by North American alpaca fiber producers. To become an AFCNA shareholder, you must be an alpaca owner and purchase one share of voting commo
- North American Fiber Producers (NAAFP) - NAAFP is an agriculture cooperative that was created to establish the highest level of quality alpaca products from fiber produced and processed in North America by alpaca fiber producers who have their fiber sorted by a certified fiber sorter, using the
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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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.
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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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!
Alpaca Shearing 2011
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Alpacas get sheared once a year. In Arizona we sheared in April but here in Massachusetts, April was too cold and too wet, so we waited into May. The day before shearing the last weekend in May it got hot, really hot. We were setting up the shearing shade pavilion and the alpacas were hovering about waiting for us to get done so they could lie down in the shade. They were guzzling water and generally looking pretty miserable. It is a good thing we sheared the very next day.
In Arizona shearing was a community activity where we knew the owners of a number of different alpaca ranches. We worked together over the course of several weeks to get everyone’s animals done and there were plenty of hands. This was our first time to do shearing in Massachusetts and we are super grateful for the friends who turned out to lend a hand even though they had never done this before.
This shearing day we had 11 animals to work with. Jonathan wielded shears as expertly as ever and we got them all done by 3 pm. The alpacas clearly grew more weight of fleece in the Massachusetts winter cold and we got quite a lovely harvest. We’ll be sorting and cleaning for quite some time to come. Eventually there will be socks and yarn but please don’t hold your breath… we promise to announce when they are actually available.