Yesterday and the day before we had the most wonderful spring-like weather. Broken temperature records and lovely sunshine. I took advantage of it and it is a good thing. Today — rainy, snowy, windy and later, cold. The alpacas got their hay in the barn this morning. They are fine outside in the snow, but if they get wet from the rain, then get chilled from the cold and wind, that is a recipe for getting sick.
Are you wondering what I did yesterday in the nice weather? I FINISHED the fiber sorting job for Sawtooth Star Alpacas! It was a BIG job. (Yes, I’m uppercase excited about being done!) I started out with over 50 bags of fiber – black, white, fawn, brown, gray, and more. There were about 15 each of black and white, so they sorted nicely into the 6 grades. There were less of the others, so some colors only had one or two grades.
Bags of black
The black is condensed into the above bags! Some fiber was too short to be processed into yarn and that is bagged separately for use in felting or other projects.
White and the others
These bags hold the white and other sorted colors. A far cry from the 50 bags I started with – but in some cases, there are bags inside bags! The owner of this wonderful fiber will need to decide what is to be processed and where! I hope she is pleased with the results of my sorting. I’m happy to be done!
- Dirty job
After the first day of sorting, I realized I was inhaling way too much dust. This is what my dust mask looked like after just a couple of fleeces! Periodically, I would beat the dust off the mask. It did make a big difference! It’s a dirty job, but the resulting yarn will be worth it!
