These things look like medieval torture devices, but boy, do they get the VM, sand and dust out of Alpaca fleece. I bought this fleece on ebay, thinking I was getting 'white'. The photo showed this gleaming raw fleece, was promoted as A+ 19 micron yummy stuff, so I was disappointed when a mound of grey landed. I even queried if I had been sent the right stuff, not to mentioned that I paid WAY over the odds for 900gms, and when it arrived only 730gms were enclosed. I complained about that too, and they said it could have been their scales....yada yada yada. It was taking up too much time to email back and forth, so I said don't worry about it and went to work to try and clean my grey fleece.
Handcarders weren't cutting it, so I went for my
Hand Combs and wow, does it make a difference. The washed fleece was still grey, but after a few brushes with the combs, grey was sprinkling all over the floor. Horrah! It's lovely and soft, and I'm hoping the rest of the VM can be picked out in the spinning process. The dirtiest Alpaca in the field methinks!
* Note to Self: Don't buy fleece off Ebay again (2nd bad experience!).
That's just bad business to do that and they should be thanking you for not naming who they are.
ReplyDeleteI have to say though in these pics it looks pretty nice, I don't have combs [yet] but I am intrigued by them and looking at what you have achieved they might be useful. I have nice carders and thought having those you might not need combs ?
I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the this fleece are you going to dye it ?