DrapedInLace: Alpaca and Shetland Wool, together in harmony

Monday 17 June 2013

Alpaca and Shetland Wool, together in harmony

I do love a nice Shetland fleece, I don't know what it is about them but I love touching them, so soft and bouncy and light to the touch. I was so impressed with the Black Shetland fleece when it arrived that I went back to the same farmer in Morval, Cornwall and bought some more Shetland fleece from her. 500g of "light fawn to cream" that was also sheared in June 2012.

I washed this fleece when it arrived last year but have only just gotten around to doing anything more with it. It was pretty dirty and after washing I was left with only 340g and after being combed that went down further still to just 186g of lovely soft combed top ready to spin in whole range of colours, with one particularly dark nest standing out from the crowd.

I had also bought some lovely cream Huacaya Alpaca last year too from Abacus Alpacas in South Cerney, Gloucestershire from one of their lovely Alpaca's called Dakota, so pretty!

1000g of main body fleece, once washed and combed left me with approx 671g of lovely combed alpaca top to spin in similar shades as the Shetland fleece. I decided to blend equal amounts of both the Alpaca and the Shetland together and then to spin the left over Alpaca on its own. The first picture below shows the same weight of Shetland (left) and Alpaca (right).

I only lost about 3g during the blending process and I managed to get 3 skeins of lovely soft 50% Shetland Wool/50% Alpaca yarn in double knit weight: 64g/161m, 141g/33m and 167g/338m.

From the Alpaca being spun on its own I managed to get 4 good sized skeins of yarn.