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Mar 22, 2008
Hand-spinning Roving, Top
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Roving is an intermediate state between sliver and yarn in spun yarn process. It is a single strand of fibers with very little twist, fed to spinning machine (or a weel) to get final yarn.
Alpaca Fleece has some unique attributes:- widest range of colours of any fibre-bearing animal: 22 recognized colours with over 250 shades: white to fawn, all the shades of brown, greys, rose-greys and black. Alpacas are usually solid colurs, but can have spots of a different clour or be pinto.
- the second (to mohair) strongest animal fibre
- warmer that wool
- non-greasy fleece; this gives it a high yield after processing: usually 85-90% versus 45-75% for sheep's wool. Alpacas do like to roll and have "dust baths", so the fleece can be dirty/dusty even thoiugh it is not greasy.
Alpaca Fiber Micron Counts:- Royal Baby or Ultrafine - less than 20 microns
- Baby or Superfine - 20-23 microns
- Fine - 23-27 microns
- Medium or Adult - 27-31 microns
- Adult or Strong - 31-35.9 microns
- Coarse - more than 36 microns
Special orders are available, no minimum order. Delivery takes 10-12 business days to our shop.Shade Card |
Paca-Puf, The Alpaca Yarn Co. Paca-Puf is 100% Baby Alpaca hand-spinning roving. It is as soft as Baby Alpaca top can be (average: 21 micron) and easy for new spinners to work with. Paca-Puf is packaged in convenient 8 oz packages and is available in 5 natural colors: White, Fawn Heather, Rose Grey, Grey Heather and Black. Made in Peru. Special orders are available. Item Code: ALTop Micron Count: the range is 21.5 to 22.5 microns In inventory: 296 Rose Grey Price: CA$24.99 /8oz Shade Card
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Cutomers' Comments:
It is absolutely the finest, easiest fiber I have ever spun with. I just love it.- Beth, Alberta
Washing Your Fleece by Nancy Carr, "Fiber Focus" Spring 2006 [The Magazine of the Ontario Spinners]
For washing the finished yarn spun from unwashed fleece, I recommend liquid Tide. Fill one side of a double-sink with quite hot water and add some liquid Tide. Place the yarn in and submerge. It can felt, so no swishing around. After about 10-15 minutes, fill the other sink with water the same temperatureas the first sink feels like at the point, put in some more Tide, drain the first sink and press as much dirty water out of your skein as you can and put it in the second sink. After 15-30 minutes, start the rinsing - move the yarn to the other sink that has water in it the same temperature. Continue moving from sink to sink of rinse water until the water is clear - usually 2-3 rinses. Press out the water, lay the skein on a towel and roll it up to get out more water, and then hang to dry, without a weight. There is usually some shrinkage in the skein from washing, but I think it is preferable to have the shrinkage at this stage rather than in the end product.
Alpaca dyes beautifully. As well as dyeing white fleece or yarn, the lighter browns can be over-dyed with purple, for example, to produce a pleasant muted colour.