Recently, we’ve been focusing on carding alpaca fiber. The beautiful long staple length of alpaca is incredibly warm and soft, and ideal for a variety of projects. Alpaca is a fiber that benefits from proper prep. Drape is the characteristic that its best known for, so avoiding damage during preparation is important. Blending in other fibers, especially wool, will make alpaca fibers easier to spin, especially for newer spinners (just make sure the wool is compatible). Some non-wool fibers to try blending in with alpaca are mohair, silk, or angora rabbit.

If you’re interested in carding alpaca on your Strauch carder, be sure to take a look at our new Alpaca carding Youtube video. If you have requests for more videos or questions, feel free to leave a comment on the Youtube video.

And if you’re interested in blending alpaca with wool, here’s a great video featuring Liz.

Check out our show schedule, we also demo with alpaca fiber at many shows! A heartfelt thank you to Mike and Debbie Vigus of West Penn Aplacas for donating both a huycaya and suri fleece for us to use at fiber shows. We washed these beautiful fleeces and are using the fiber to demonstrate how easily the Strauch drum carder processes the fiber into lovely, thick batts!