The more I’ve worked with the fleece of our alpacas, the more I’ve discovered about the uniqueness of each one. I am quickly learning whose fleece is good for felting, whose would be good for rugs and whose makes a gorgeous super silky soft yarn.
What will take longer (decades!), is to know who will retain their fleece fineness and whose will grow coarser more quickly.
In the alpaca world fleece micron testing is a big deal. And I get it. I think in the world we live in it makes sense as a way to quality test our alpacas fleeces. A good quality fleece is a health indicator, so it’s good to know it’s good!
But I’ve been asking myself…
What are we doing with our fleeces?
What do we need to know about them?
What is the best way for me to know that?
And it comes back to the old ways. It comes back to basics.
Looking, feeling, spending time with. And that takes time. That is slow and concentrated work. It’s not something I can know instantly nor even know with just a couple of year’s supply of fleeces.
I’ve been learning all about the old ways of the spinners and weavers of the Andes and they didn’t and don’t have fleece micron testing nor did they need to.
They had a deep and personal long term relationship with their animals and the fleece they produce.
Their records were all in their minds.
I’d love to know if this is still the case in those rural highland mountain herding communities.
This capacity to retain information over the long term and transmit it orally is deeply human and is quickly being lost. This is how our brains evolved to work.
These women (and often men too) know exactly what kind of fleece each of their animals produces, what will make for a good fleece harvest and what will decrease its quality, what each animal’s fleece will be good for and how best to work with it.
Some people also seem to have a knack for seeing fleece quality. A dear friend of mine the other day pointed out the alpaca she believed to have the most beautiful fleece and she pointed out Dotty (Dot Cottontail). Spot on. Dotty’s fleece has a fineness I’ve not encountered in our herd before, her staple length is well well well beyond the required minium 4cm that the mill ask for and the colour is just the most beautiful rose grey.
So as I sit each day with the fleece I’m currently working with not only am I creating, I am also learning, obtaining important information about the health and vitality of our herd and building a reservoir of information about the harvest from our farm.
Pictured here below is my current project, making yarn from our gorgeous Champion’s fleece as well as my yarn skeins so far!
One day I will look back on these skeins and spot all of the errors but they are my first and for that I am proud.
Carly x
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