I spent some time carding yesterday. I started with the black baby suri alpaca fiber I had washed – and felted – a few days ago. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I teased much of it loose with a metal dog comb and carded all of it. There are still a few small clumps that aren’t carding well and I’ll have to pull those out as I continue to work the fiber. Chances are I can tease them out with a metal dog comb, but some of them may end up getting discarded.

I also carded the gray fiber also destined for the Naughty Puppies Blend. The gray fiber came out pretty clean.

My original plan was to blend the black suri into the gray huacaya to get black streaks. After washing, however, I have 17.6 ounces of black suri and 7.2 ounces of gray huacaya. Even given the volume difference in the huacaya because it fluffs up more, this isn’t going to work because I have too much suri for the amount of huacaya fiber.

I’m still not convinced blending the suri is the right thing to do. I’m not really happy selling the roving as is because of all the short and variable staple in the fiber as well as the felty clumps. However, it certainly is something I could spin into very nice yarn. If I blend it with the longer and also variable length gray fiber, I will have a more manageable staple length, and the felty clumps will tend to get worked out in the blending process. It’s something to think about as I work with the fiber.

Right now, I’m experimenting with blending the gray huacaya into the black suri. I’m curious how the fluffier gray stretches will work against the black suri background. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll end up with some black suri roving and some blended roving when I’m through with this.

(And trust me, whatever I end up doing, I will deal with those felty clumps. I’m not going to sell rovings with felty clumps in them.)

We continue to work on our on-line store. A better description of our HeatherSelect™ line of rovings and yarn is available as a popup from the Knitting Nook page. The HeatherSelect™ line is not only our signature line, but they are my pride and joy and a lot of fun to create. The updated rovings page is in progress and we should have rovings available shortly.

Our AlpacaNation site site has been updated with fiber pictures of our little boys. It’s going to be fun shearing those guys in May – they’re growing wonderful, wonderful fiber.

For the bird lovers out there, check out our “nest stuffers” or “bird nesters". These are birdfeeders, except they serve alpaca fiber to be used as nest linings rather than bird seed. Our nest stuffers are listed under the Miscellaneus Matter section of the on-line store.
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