building, washing, and soon to be spinning Maidens

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

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 ;-)