How to Make Alpaca Yarn

This alpaca's fleece can produce a luxuriously soft yarn.

An alpaca is an animal that resembles a llama but is usually a little bit smaller and does not have a coarse outer coat of hair as do llamas. Alpaca fiber is warmer than wool and extremely soft, making it a popular with those who spin, knit and crochet. An alpaca fleece needs very little preparation to turn it into a soft, smooth yarn.

Things You'll Need

• Sink
• Dish soap
• Towel
• Drying rack
• Hand carders or drum carder
• Spinning wheel or spindle

Instructions

1. Wash the fleece. First pick out any vegetative matter (VM) or plant residue with your fingers. Then gently immerse the fleece in a sink with warm soapy water and let it soak for five to ten minutes. Take it out and gently squeeze out the soapy water, then roll it in a towel to dry it further. Lay it out on a drying rack in the open air to dry completely.

2. Prepare the fiber for spinning. Use hand carders or a drum carder to card the alpaca fleece. Swipe small amounts of the fleece through the carders until it becomes smooth, then roll them up; this is called a rolag. If you have a drum carder, card the fleece by rolling it through the carder into a batt for spinning.

3. Draft the fiber. To do this, pull the fibers apart so that they separate slightly but do not break apart entirely. Hold this in your non-dominant hand.

4. Attach a leader yarn (a length of yarn about 12 inches long) to your spindle or wheel. Fluff out the ends of the leader yarn and pinch this together with a small portion of your alpaca fiber. Start to spin your wheel or spindle clockwise and let the twist run up the leader yarn and into the alpaca fiber. Slowly pull your pinched fingers up the fiber to let more twist in, and then feed it into your wheel's orifice or wrap it around the spindle. Now you have created yarn.

5. Continue to draft, spin and move your hand from the twisted fibers to the untwisted ones to make more yarn until you run out of fiber to spin.

6. Finish the yarn. When you have finished spinning (and plying if you desire), soak the finished yarn in warm water for a few hours. Remove it from the water, gently squeeze out the excess, and hang it on a coat hanger to dry. If it twists back on itself a lot, weight it down by hanging a second hanger over the bottom loop of the skein to straighten it out. When it is dry your alpaca yarn will be ready for knitting and crocheting.

References

• Joy of Handspinning: Handspinning Alpaca
• Joy of Handspinning: Making Yarn with a Drop Spindle
• Joy of Handspinning: Basic Handspinning Techniques