Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Spinning Kai: All Done!

See the complete series of posts on spinning Kai Llama's fiber, from fleece to yarn. 


After spinning, plying, and skeining the llama fiber, I washed the skeins gently in warm, soapy water. The thing to remember with wool, and presumably with llama, is to avoid agitation in the water and to keep the water temperature constant when moving the skeins from soapy water to rinse water. The skeins may be very gently squeezed to remove water, but must never be wrung out. As a matter of fact, if you want to make felt, you just alternate hot and cold water and agitate a lot: To keep yarn fluffy and intact, just do the opposite. 

The damp skeins are then hung up to dry. Single strand yarn must be weighted at this point to help set the twist; with plied yarn weighting isn't necessary. 

The Kai yarn looking very decorative while drying

A bunch of Kai

When dry, the skeins can be twisted with the ends tucked in. I have labeled each one with the yardage. I wanted to share some alpaca and soft wool with Danni, so I am also sending along the skeins below.

Plied alpaca on the left, very soft wool singles on the right
The llama, alpaca, and wool yarns are all boxed up, addressed, and ready to go down to the Post Office and off to Danni in Oregon. I can't tell you how relieved I am to have this project completed! Besides that, I just discovered that this will be my 1000th post on The Zees Go West--what a great feeling of accomplishment!

12 comments:

Joyful said...

Wow, congratulations on your 1000 posts!

I'm now wondering if you can spin wool for others and if you have the raw materials. I don't have any llamas ;-)

Margie's Musings said...

That's just amazing! It has been very interesting to follow your progress with this project.

clairz said...

Penny/Joyful, at this point I would gladly teach anyone else to spin rather than spinning for them--my version of the old "teach a man to fish" saying. ("Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime").

Joyful said...

I'm too far away to learn spinning from you. I did mention before that there is a place where I live where I can learn. I just thought it would be nice to have some wool from a blogging buddy but I totally understand your position.

Morning Bray Farm said...

How incredible... and what an amazing gift for Danni... to have Kai wool. Very cool.

Congratulations on 1000!

Danni said...

I love that your finishing Kai's fiber is your post #1000!
Congratulations on an amazing blogging history and your significant accomplishment.
I absolutely *love* the photo of Kai's yarn drying. So pretty.
Thank you again, so much, Clair. What do you plan to do with your share of her yarn?
:-)

clairz said...

Danni, the other half isn't spun yet. I'd like to try blending it with some of the alpaca and some of the wool to do something with shading in it. No more spinning until after Christmas probably, but that will just give me some time to think up a knitting project.

For now, it's on to knitting gift socks--very fun, too!

Beth said...

Just dropping by to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, Clair. The wool is lovely---it looks so soft. And I love your log-cabin blanket---so, so pretty.

becky said...

Wow, that is just amazing, Clair! What a process!
Hope you have a special Thanksgiving w/ family & friends! Red chile turkey, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

1,000 posts - congratulations on this major achievement!

Those yarns look so soft.

Ms. Becky said...

well first off, congratulations on your 1000th blog post! that is an accomplishment alright. and look at that yarn! it's beautiful. you did a wonderful job with it. I can almost feel your relief at having finished with this project. and I'm loving your new header image too. that's one inviting door...
happy day to you Clair.

Randy said...

Love the colors of your yarns. Congratulations on the 1000th! Oh and I love your banner photo.