The Joy of the Journey

I won a cool prize last year at the Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show, for a hand-spun and hand-knitted project, and it whetted my appetite for fame and accolade amongst my knitting/spinning brethren. I've been thinking about what to make for next year.

For a couple of years I have had some beautiful suri fleeces, some given and some sold to me by a breeder in the Southern Highlands. I've been meaning to do something with them, and I think I have found just the thing.

Scour, comb, re-scour, rinse, condition, rinse, repeat until finally white!

In numerous of my recent spinning experiences, working with raw fleeces instead of processed top, I have realised, mostly through doing it the *wrong* way, that the up-front preparation is diabolically important. The effort you put in to the scouring/carding part of the process reflects directly and I think exponentially upon the quality of your finished yarn. 

This had already had at least one wash, if not two.

Getting cleaner

Clean and dry, shining in the sun and ready to spin

Alpacas are grubby beasts. They like to roll. They are always *full* of dust. In the case of suris, who have silken dreadlocks, they are also full of burrs, grass etc (known as 'vegetable matter' or VM). Scouring the fleeces is a long and arduous process.

In commencing to prep these suri fleeces, I am putting an intensive amount of effort in. However long it takes, it will take. 

To date I've spent three days on the first fleeces (there are three destined for this project). So far I have only 50g of cleaned, dried and carded fleece. I think it still needs to be hackled before being spun. There is another batch still being soaked, which I'll hopefully attend to tomorrow.

Carded and ready to spin

I'm seriously excited about this project. Stay tuned for progress reports.

Oh, and it was just the perfect weather for sitting on the grass in the sunshine, mucking about with a watery project!

The jacaranda is in bud!