Nancie McCraw, I have bred alpacas and put their entire clip into production each year, for 10 years. At first, all the neck and blanket fiber, well skirted, went to a mini mill in Portland. It was dehaired, blended with fine Merino, and spun into 3-ply yarn, but it wasnt as Ooooh as I had hoped. Though it felt wonderful in the skein, once it was knit up, it was often itchy, some of it shed, and some pilled -- obviously I didnt get a lot of repeat buyers at the farmers market in those early years, and feel I did a disservice to our industry in selling less than fabulous yarn. It took me several years to learn about the value and benefits of using properly sorted fiber (separated by fiber length, color, and fineness), and I trained to become a Certified Sorter. First Ah-ha! moment: not all blankets should be spun into knitting yarn, even after dehairing! At about the same time, I joined the Natural Fiber Producers co-operative (originally North American Alpaca Fiber Producers -- NAAFP) whose first step in quality assurance is to accept only fiber that has been sorted by a certified sorter or an apprentice (see Certified Sorted on FB). I have served on the NFP Board, and am now the yarn production manager. I know a lot more about how to build a good yarn, but realize there is always more to learn. As for the pictures, the 1st is a photo taken from the promotional materials of a commercially spun alpaca yarn (spun in Peru) sold in Local Yarn Shops across the country. Big name brand. Look at all those wingy thingy primary fibers. YUCK! The 2nd picture is of an ultrafine (less than 20 microns) yarn, and the 3rd picture is of a fine yarn (23-25.9 microns) -- both spun at commercial mills, and neither required dehairing because proper sorting separated it from the hairier areas of the fleece. The 4th picture is a commercially spun yarn (US Mill using Peruvian alpaca top). The 5th picture is the logo for Fibers by Nature, the retail division of NFP. Youll find a growing variety of yarns, roving, accessories and home goods, on Facebook or online. [If you are set up as a business with an EIN, NFP/FBN welcomes wholesale accounts from fiber artists, local yarn shops, and farm stores.] While breeding for improved uniformity across the blanket is the fiber producers ultimate goal, the reality is that our national alpaca herd has a huge population of aging animals, and MANY, even younger animals, have long, strong primary fibers that MUST come out before a fine yarn can be spun. Cards alone wont get out all the strong primaries. There are also dual-coated sheep, goats, llamas, buffalo, bunnies, etc whose fiber will benefit from dehairing (aka Separating). This reality led NFP to embark on the purchase of a commercial dehairer. Mini mill dehairers will always be appropriate for farms that wish to process small batches of Fluffys fleece, but they can only process approx 2 lbs/hour -- it is labor intensive and therefore adds $10-14/lb to processing (WELL worth the cost on a small scale!). NFPs dehairer will be capable of processing 50 lbs/hour at $6.75/lb. Lower cost in time and money for those who wish to process on a large scale. With a 300 lb minimum, NFP will not be taking business away from mini mills! The advent of a commercial dehairer here means there will be more TOP QUALITY yarns produced in the USA. This is good for the fiber producers, for the mills, for the yarn shops, and especially for the consumer, who spends a lot of money and even more time to knit, weave, and crochet garments and accessories that should be nothing less than ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 14:10:58 +0000
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