Dehairing Alpaca Fiber

I got some beautiful Alpaca fiber on the Internet a month or two ago. Of course, when you are buying form a  new seller, you don't always know what you are going to get! The fleece was lovely, but it did contain a lot of guard hairs.

Sooo...For this week's manual therapy (aka keeping my arthritic fingers mobile!), I dehaired almost a pound of raw Alpaca. It was incredibly relaxing and I find that I really connect with my fiber when I take the time to process it carefully. Some was dyed, some was undyed, all was pre-washed. Next time I may see about dehairing before I wash the fiber.

He's a videoblog post about it (and some random ramblings as well!) And as an added bonus for those of you who visit the blog, here are a bunch of pictures showing some close ups of alpaca fiber vs. guard hair.

Alpaca before dehairing

Alpaca after dehairing

Alpaca fiber on the left, Guard hair on the right

Finger twisted guard hair - adding this to another fiber
would make some very strong yarn/cord