My sweater

It might have been greedy for me to first make something for myself. But I wanted something I could wear to alpaca shows and craft fairs to show off our alpaca product. This is a very artsy sweater. For one, I spun it with any color variation that came along. I could have picked out the really white parts and the browish spots to make the color uniform. I chose to keep it artsy and natural. It is also one of my first spinning adventures so the yarn has it's bumps and variation. This makes it very natural and artsy looking.

I am exicted how the sweater turned out. I did have to make some changes in order to get it right in the end, but it's finally there!

I do need to block it yet and put on buttons. The way it's hanging here is a bit off center, but it gives you the idea:




After I finished my sweater, I washed up Victoria's fiber from 2 years ago. To wash it, I put a bunch of it in a netting bag and wash it in sink with very hot water. The first time I put some dawn dish soap in there first to clean it. I fill the sink with hot water and dawn, then immerge the bag of fiber. I let it sit for 15 mintues then squeeze it out. You do have to be careful because aggitation will cause the fibers to felt, and I don't want that! I sometimes repeat with another dawn washing, depending on how dirty it is. Then I do at least two soakings in plain water to rinse off the soap. This is what it looks like in the sink:

Once I have it clean, I spread the fiber out on a skirting table J made for me that we keep in our basement. While laying there, we will fluff up the fiber from time to time to help it dry and make sure it doesn't set in a clump. Then I use a flicker to make a cloud of fiber to spin from. Another option would be to send it to a mill and have rovings made to spin from. So far I've done fine with a cloud that we do ourselves. It saves my having to wait for the mill :)

Once I have the sweater blocked and buttons on, I'll post a picture of me in it.