Our Prairie Primer Journey: Kai's Fiber

Now, please understand that this llama fiber came straight off Kai, with

all the vm (vegetation matter), mud (not much) and

what we think was a nice smell of llama!

Needless to say we couldn't spin it in this condition, so back to

google for some help and help I received.

We learned that the process of prepping the fiber was

SIMPLE!

Of coarse with the simplicity there was some very

important steps to follow in assuring that the fiber

would not felt in the process.

Here is the raw fleece with a sweet note from Danni

And here is the Lovely Kai, such a beauty!!

AbbiYah picking out vm and mud

YahChanna meticulously picking out vm

OK, the reason for taking the temp is we wanted to know

how hot the water was when we started.

a tablespoon of liquid Dawn Soap

Immerse/soak the fleece, it is important not to agitate or

move the fleece around too much, it can felt. So, press it down

for about 30 seconds, release and let it alone!

Set the timer for 30 min.

When the 30 minutes are up, take the temp of the water, this is an

important step, because fluctuation of water temps can,

yes you guessed it, felt the fiber.

ever so gently squeeze just once maybe twice the excess water

out of the fiber, why gently... don't want to felt the fiber

Kai's fleece didn't look that dirty to us

but the water says other wise. I found out while

searching out about Llama's they love to roll in the dirt!

OK, to rinse the fiber they filled the tub with the same temp water no soap this
time and immersed the fiber again, just hold under for about 30 seconds and let it alone

after 30 min, gently squeeze the excess water out

Well, the water isn't very clear so they rinsed again

since I posted the pics of the first rinse I didn't

see the need to repeat, so no pics of the second rinse

We gently placed the wet fiber onto a thick dry towel, rolled it

up and walked on it. We did this twice with a fresh dry towel

because we didn't have any framed screen to dry it outside

in, it worked for us. The result dry fiber!

After the fiber dried, it needs to be picked out, to loosen it up and

free the fibers of any mats. While doing this process we removed

the vm we missed the first round.

The above pic is Kai's clean ready to be

carded fiber. Oh carding? That's for

another day ;-)

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This week one of the projects that Prairie Primer suggested was

knitting. My girls already know how to knit, however

they don't know how to spin fiber...

They've already prepared the raw fiber to be carded.

Carding? What is carding you ask... good question!

Carding is simply brushing the fur so that the fiber

all lays in on direction, which is needed to spin

a nice yarn.

These are carders...

kinda look like poodle brushes, don't they ;-)

first one brush er uh, carder needs to be

loaded. I found out that it's best to

load in small sections

once loaded it's time to brush, gently, litely like

brushing hair. Start at the bottom of the

carder, brushing the fiber then move up

till all the fiber has been brushed through

see how the fiber is starting to all lay in one direction

once all the fiber has been brush it's time to

take the fiber and load it onto the other empty

carder.

I didn't get any pics but after the fiber has been carded

it should be rolled into what looks like a cigar. Then reload
the carder and start again till all the
fiber has been carded.

At this point the fiber is ready to be

drafted- drafting is gently pull the fiber

out a short length so that what
was once a 6-7 inch cigar (pics found below spinning pics) is now
a yard of so lite fluffy strip
of fiber similar to a strip of
cotton but much liter, ready

to be spun.