Alpaca Fleece

Alpaca fleece has many variables. It can be huacaya or suri, first or later shearing, and comes in 22 different colors. Once you have classed your fiber by type of alpaca and shearing age, color is the next variable to consider. For hand spinners, each of the individual colors can be a delight for special projects. But if you opt for mill processing, you will find it more economical to sort your colors down to seven basics from the greater variety your herd produces. White and black stand alone. The other five colors are light fawn, fawn, brown, rose gray, and silver gray.

To determine which colors belong to which group, the ARI Natural Color Chart can be obtained from AOBA, PO Box 1992, Estes Park, CO 80517-1992.

Fleece can also be classed by fineness, length and medullation. Fineness is the diameter of natural fibers measured in microns and generally varies from 20 to 36 microns, 20 being the finest and 36 being coarse.

Fiber length is generally between 3 and 9 inches long. If it is in this range, it can be processed using the worsted system. Fibers under three inches long is processed under the woolen system.

Medullated fibers have a central core made up of air-filled cells. These fibers should be kept separate from the rest as they are coarser.

Alpaca fiber can be sold as is to handspinners and weavers. Many people enjoy spinning fiber to their own specifications for projects such as knitted or woven garments, rugs, and felted items.

Fiber can also be sent to a mill to be cleaned and processed into roving, which can then be sold. This frees spinners and weavers of the cleaning and carding processes. Roving is fiber that has been cleaned and carded. The carding process causes fibers to line up parallel to each other in readiness for spinning. Roving can also be used for felting or for making locker-hooked items such as rugs.

Fiber can be handspun into yarn or sent to a mill that completes the final step and machine spins the yarn into skeins or cones as you designate. Cones are used on knitting machines and skeins are what most knitters are used to buying in a store.