I spindle spun the blend of fawn and dark brown alpaca fiber. My consistency is decent when I am paying attention. If I am watching my youngest play Zelda Breath of the Wind, however, the yarn goes thin then thick pretty quickly. Oops.

The fawn color really disappeared quickly into the brown. I’m not sure I’m going to get the gradient I was hoping for when I make something with this. We will see!

I blended Donnabella and Aimee’s fleece! The color difference is greater between the fawn and dark brown, and it didn’t take much brown to make a significant difference in the blend color.

After blending, I color sorted the rolags before spinning.

I am finding differences in fiber in the fleeces. I’m not sure if I selected raw fiber from different parts of each blanket (the fiber sheared from the back of the alpaca), or if there are differences in fiber diameter between animals (which makes sense), or both. I am pleased that I am learning and noticing the differences!

The rolags of alpaca wool I am carding are so light and fluffy, I don’t want to pack down the fibers by storing them until everything is carded. So I decided to spin as I go.

It is a nice pairing of tasks: card a box full of rolags, spin said rolags, repeat. When my spindle was just as full as I could get it, I did wind the yarn on my niddy noddy, rinsed it, and let it dry. Even though I washed the raw fleece, it still had some water resistance. The dried yarn is balanced and more consistent in thickness than my last spindle full.

The color shift from Sugar Plum’s fleece to Donnabella’s came out nicely!

I think I mentioned that I purchased three different colors of alpaca wool? Now comes the fun part (who am I kidding it has all been fun): blending! I used my fine carders to blend portions of Sugar Plum’s (white) and Donabella’s (fawn) fleece to make intermediate colors. The idea is to get a gradual change from one color to the next.

The color change is subtle; Donnabella’s fleece is only slightly darker than Sugar Plum’s, but there is a difference. Next I’ll try blending Donnabella’s with Aimee’s (dark brown).

The alpaca fleece is dry and I am starting to card and spin it! My plan was to card it all, grade it by color, then spin, but my rolags (the rolls of carded fiber) are so fluffy that I don’t have room to store them like I did with the merino wool rolags. So I decided to spin as I go. If it were possible to spin clouds, I think this is how it would feel. The soft alpaca rolags are light and airy but are spinning up easily. I’m using my homemade top whorl spindle and planning for spinning everything as Z spun singles (as opposed to the opposite direction referred to as S). What am I planning for the finished yarn? A hat of course. I’ve read that alpaca doesn’t have the same elasticity as wool, so I think testing it on an item I am very comfortable making is a good start.