Tag: how to spin alpaca

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My 3rd ever hand spun skein of yarn!

I had a nice quiet weekend and with mother nature constantly raining on us I had the opportunity to spin on my drop spindle again.  I spun up a nice 3 ply yarn out of my boy CoHo.   The fiber I used raw neck fiber.  No washing, no carding, just brushed the top out and spun.  I’m very happy with the result.  It’s fuzzy and very soft.

Since it is neck fiber it did have some guard hair in it.  I picked out some as I brushed but in the end it didn’t seem to add any scratchy feeling to the finished yarn. I put the skein around my neck and it was cuddly soft so I’m not concerned with the guard hairs I missed.

This skein will hopefully be enough to finish my scarf I started last week.  Since I’m using a small drop spindle I usually only can spin and ply about 50 yards at a time.  Blah.

The photo was taken before I put the twist in it so it’s loose, you can see it’s a nice tight spin 3 ply.  Some of the plys came out really neat black, grey, and almost white stripped.  I can’t wait to crochet it.

skein

Check out Alpaca Farm Girl’s Fiber Arts Friday for more fiber things people are doing.

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Homemade Drop Spindle


I’m a geek by trade so when it comes time to build things like a drop spindle I dig around in my miscellaneous drawer to find items that might work.   I read a lot online on how to make your own drop spindles but they all involved drills and going to the store and buying stuff.   In the end I figured what the heck I’ll just buy a few drop spindles but impatience got the best of me,  I wanted one now and didn’t want to wait.

So, I present to you the 21st century Geek Spindle!  I bet Bill Gates never thought his Windows 98 SE CD’s would be used like this.  

Materials:
1. Dowel – rummaged in the barn and found one – Cut to 15”
2. Electrical Tape – Ok what person doesn’t have a roll or 5 of this hanging around the house?
3. (5) CD’s:  I have boxes of useless CDs of old software, drivers, etc.  5 seemed to be a good weight
4. Small hook – Had several in the junk drawer

The dowel fit nicely through the hole of the CD. I taped above and below it to make sure it didn’t slide or rotate.  I screwed the hook to the short side of dowel and piled up some tape at the edge of the CDs to make a “Groove” for the spun fiber to rest.

Voila! Geek Spindle! Sorry for the poor photo quality, I took them with my cell phone at work.



The roving I’m using is from my Reserve Color Champion black alpaca.  I have 10lbs available anyone is interested email me.

I usually post my fiber projects on Monday’s but remember to check out Alpaca Farm Girl’s Fiber Arts Fridays!

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Update 7/8/09
Finsihed my first skein of yarn. 157 feet long 3 ply.