Fleece Sorting: Olivia's report on her first experience in the sorting shed

Olivia is thrown in at the deep end in her first week of interning here at Toft:  


Within the first week of my internship with The Toft Alpaca Shop I got down to the nitty gritty of fleece sorting. 

Fleece sorting is the second step after shearing in the process of producing Toft yarn. It is the most important aspects of the whole manufacturing process as it guarantees quality and colour. 

Huacaya Fleece 

Grades:

Firsts - Fine yarn - Cria/Young alpacas

Seconds - Double knit yarn - Cria/Young alpacas

Thirds - Aran Yarn - Young adult alpacas

Fourths - Chunky Yarn - Adult alpacas

The rest would be suitable for interior stuffing

Alpaca fleece over eighteen years old wouldn't be used as it lacks quality.

Suri Fleece

There are only two grades when sorting Suri fleece

Grade one - Best quality fleece from the saddle area, blanket fibre.

Grade two -  Fleece from the neck and the legs of the alpaca.

Sorting the fleece into grades 

The alpaca fibre is painstakingly sorted into different colour coded and graded bags before being sent off to the mill to be spun into yarn. Each fleece that is sent to Toft from other alpaca owners and breeders has to be checked individually and thoroughly. The saddle is where the best fleece is grown on an alpaca, quite often the leg and neck is not used because it is too coarse or it isn't long enough (4-6") to be spun.

Whilst we are fleece sorting we look out for following;

Lustre
Brightness,
Softness
Fineness

Brightness is the term used to describe the degree to which a Huacaya fleece reflects light and luster is the term used to define whether the Suri fleece reflects light.

Light fawn Huacaya fleece

A Toft Huacaya Alpaca

A Toft Suri Alpaca

Grade 1 Suri fleece                        

 

Guard Hair 

Guard hair is thicker and a lot stiffer than the rest of the alpaca fleece which makes the yarn very itchy on the skin. We can spot guard hair from seeing and feeling the fleece, fleece with high levels of guard hair will not be made into yarns.

Shirley using some comedy spec's to search for guard hair!

Foliage 

Infestation in the fleece

The fleece has to be in a good clean condition to be sent off to be spun. If the fleece is contaminated with foliage we cannot use this as it can ruin the quality of the yarn.

Staple

The staple is the length measured of each fibre which has to be over 5 cm. If it is any less than this the fibre wouldn't be long enough to spin. The staple is defined by how long the fibre has grown from one shearing process to the next.

Crimp

Crimp is only  found in Huacaya fleece.  This is not an essential quality of good fibre for processing, but it is used as a indicator of quality and fineness, it is very important in the show ring when judging alpacas.

 Colour

The colour of the fleece is very important. 

The Toft Alpaca Shop only use 100% natural fibre to create their products. We do not use dyes or bleach when processing our yarns. The colours of yarn that Toft produce are cream, oatmeal, stone, camel, fudge, chestnut, mushroom, silver, steel and charcoal and black. 

As we were fleece sorting we came across a grey fleece. Grey alpaca fleece is very rare and hard to get hold of, so to produce our silver yarn we spin black and cream fleece together. Silver and Steel are our most popular yarn colours to sell.

Sorting fawn huacaya fleece into grades

Archie the Llama paid us a visit!

   

Suri or Huacaya??

Some of you may have noticed that we have recently added ‘2ply Suri’ yarn to our knitting yarn repertoire, in fact as we speak I am having this year’s Suri spun into 4ply yarn. What makes it special?

There are two types of alpaca: the HUACAYA and the SURI. Huacaya alpacas are the most common, and will be what all alpaca products, knitting yarn and knitwear is made from unless otherwise sated. The suri alpaca makes up on 5% of the world population of alpacas. Suris boast a different type of fleece, with very dissimilar qualities to the Huacaya fibre, thus giving the animals themselves a different appearance. The Huacaya alpaca has a soft, crimpy fibre that grows at right angles to the skin, whereas Suri alpaca is silky and straight in appearance and forms what resembles ‘dreadlocks’ when it falls from the body. The huacaya in full fleece has a ‘teddy bear’ appearance, whereas the suri can be crudely described as having a ‘mop head’ appearance. Both types of alpaca fibre are incredibly soft, but Suri alpaca exceeds Huacaya for lustre, and Huacaya suri for flexibility or memory in a yarn. Suri yarns have less ‘spring’ than Huacaya yarns (due to the absence of the crimp down the staple length).

Many spinners in the UK will mix suri alpaca with huacaya when producing a knitting yarn as the crimp gives the fibre more bulk. 100% suri yarns will behave similar to silk when knitted. Patterns have to be selected carefully to ensure that the finished knitted item will hold its shape. Scarves, shawls and snoods are ideal for knitting in this kind of less flexible yarn, as the lack of shaping will disguise any inconsistencies in tension. Suri alpaca is heavier in weight than huacaya, and so better spun into fine weight yarns.

Suri alpacas come in as many natural colours as huacayas, just at Toft we only have 6 white animals and so I have only been able to produce white suri yarn to date. This year i will mate my white suri alpaca to a black male in order to try to create a coloured suri cria- but the yarn won't be ready until 2010!!