Sunday, June 6, 2010

An Experiment with Color

So I'm waiting on some micron counts for the fleeces that I've got from the shearing this year and I decided to do a little experimenting while I'm waiting. I carded up 4 ozs of naturally dark brown alpaca



with an equal amount of 70% merino/30% silk dyed mostly yellow with bits of red and blue



Here's the alpaca going in to the carder (electric carders - you gotta love 'em!)



followed by the merino/silk. I ran each batt through three times to get a good mix of the alpaca/merino/silk.



Of course, the cat helped through the entire process . . . .



I ended up with eight 1-oz batts. I'm shooting for two 4-oz 2-ply skeins. When I first pulled them out of the carder I was a little under-whelmed.





But this is how it's spinning up and I'm absolutely loving it!



NEXT: The journey from alpaca to yarn!