A few months ago a fellow blogger, Danni from On the Way to Critter Farm
was giving away llama fur, so Mama thought it would
be fun for us to learn how to spin.
We thought it would be fun too, but first we had to
find out what was needed to spin wool or llama fur.
The spinning wheels were out too much money to
learn on, the next option drop spindles. As
we were watching videos about drop spindles we
came across a video about a kick spindle.
As Mama studied the picture and watched the
video she thought it would be
a great learning experience for us to build our own, not
to mention less expensive then buying one.
So here we go, this was how we made our
kick spindles.
First, remove the stud from the bun foot
yay, got it!
drilling a center whole in the bun foot
cutting the dowel rod down to size
sharpening each end of the cut dowel rod
screwing in the hook at the end of the small rod
didn't get a pick of cutting down the larger dowel rod
but did get the pic of the 45 degree angle of the cut
drilling a hole in the larger rod for the small dowel rod to go through
gluing down the larger dowel to the base
Here is our kick spindles and yes that is
some of the llama fiber, it was still dirty but
we just had to try out the spindles and they
work beautifully!!
Since the 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,
we couldn't spin it in this condition, so back to
google for some help and help we 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!!
Here I am 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
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 ;-)
