Alpaca Fiber Processing

Well, many folks leave their shorn fiber in bags in their basement. We left our first fleece in our basement, too. We just could not decide what to do with it! Finally, we searched out our options and made an informed decision.

We will help you to get your alpaca fleece out of your basement!

If you do not want any finished alpaca product, the easiest option is to sell your raw alpaca wool directly to the cottage industry.

Many cities have fiber guilds that can help you find a buyer for your fiber. Our local guild is called the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati.

You can also sell it at fiber fairs. Our favorite fiber fair is called A Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

But, perhaps you want to have finished alpaca products for yourself or to sell to your customers.

If so, another option would be to send your raw fleece to a fiber co-op such as AFCNA. They combine your fleece with other fleece as appropriate so they can have larger runs which are more efficient. This fiber coooperative option greatly helps in the development of a national alpaca fiber industry.

But, you may want alpaca yarn from your own alpacas. In this case, I would suggest that you use alpaca fiber mills. Our local fleece mill is called Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. They provide custom fiber processing services for a reasonable price. If you only have small amounts of fiber, they will card and make roving. If you have larger amounts, they will also spin your fiber.

But, perhaps you are a hands-on sort of person. You may love crafts. If so, then you may prefer to process your own alpaca fleece.

The steps are relatively simple, but a bit time-consuming.

• Skirting
• Washing
• Carding
• Roving
• Spinning
• Dyeing

Alpaca fleece can even be made into nice warm batting to be used in quilting. Alice and Jenene are experience quilters who can tell you all about quilting tidbits !

Once you have spun your alpaca yarn, you may then be interested in fiber arts.

• Knitting
• Crocheting
• Weaving
• Felting
• Locker Hooking

After considering all of these options our first two years, we decided to use our local fleece mill to provide roving for us since carding is a bit too labor intense for us. Then, we are going to spin the alpaca roving into alpaca yarn ourselves. We will offer some yarn for sale, and we will knit, crochet, weave, felt and locker hook the remainder of the yarn. We plan to sell these finished alpaca products if we can bear to part with them!

Next year we plan to become shareholders of AFCNA, and to investigate options with them.

So, now you have no more reasons to keep your alpaca fleece in your basement!

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