Obsessed I Tell You

I can't leave that filthy alpaca alone. I've been spending hours combing it by hand into little cloud-like coils.



In fact yesterday I went to an all-day spin-in. I spent six hours spinning it. Even after washing (multiple times), carding and combing, this is what it did to my hands.



Say it with me, "Ewwwwww."

It's gross, right? But I keep going back to it. Yesterday I carded the rest on my drum carder and still only got about half of it combed.



You may be wondering why I'm carding and combing this beast. The locks are really clumped up with dirt. When I just comb it it takes a huge amount of time and energy and I end up throwing away a lot of fiber. Carding it first kind of breaks it up and makes the combing much easier and more productive. I can't just card it either because of the amount of veg in it. If I just carded it all the hay and grass would just get mushed up and mixed in with the fiber. I want to get as much out as possible.

I'm going to try to take a little break from it tonight. But it keeps pulling me back in!

You Filthy Beast

A few weeks ago I was dyeing this skein of yarn. I realized I had a lot of extra dye in the pot and ran to my fiber stash to find something else to throw in there. I found a bag of what appeared to be relatively clean, soft alpaca. I didn't remember where it came from but I put it in a lingerie bag and started soaking it before dyeing. People, the unspeakable quantity of filth that came off this fiber and the amazing amounts of hay, grass and God knows what else...it was amazing. I washed it several times. I dyed it. I washed it several more times. The rinse water was still brown. Disgusting. And the vegetation was all still there. I decided to comb some of it to try to get out the veg. (Carding just mixes it in.)I combed a bit. Huge quantities of dirt and veg came out. I spun a bit. It turned my fingers black.

At this point a normal person would think, "Hey, this is just a small bag of free alpaca someone gave to me. I can just compost it and call it a day." But I can't stop. I spent all last night combing bits of it and spinning it. The fiber ended up a soft blue-green.



It's spinning up into a sage-y gray. I can't stop. Last night I also dyed the rest of it but a much more vivid yellow-blue-green. In the end I might get 4 oz of yarn from this. But I can't stop myself. Last night I would spin a little, wash my hands and call it done. Then drift back over to the pile of fiber and start sorting it again, picking out the yuck, spinning more. There was a lot of hand washing. This sucker is still disgusting.

My other obsession is still continuing too.