Alpaca seams to be the most abundant in the fiber world. It is very warm and very soft. It has a beautiful drape and a good staple length. Huacaya Alpaca is a shorter staple length and is most common, from my experience. The Suri Alpaca is much longer, comparable to a longwool, I have not worked with this variety however.
Bactrian Camels, as opposed to the single hump Dromedary Camel, has a decent amount of usable fiber. Both of these breeds are domesticated. Bactrian Camels have a short, cotton like length staple, but it is very soft and considered a luxury fiber.
Llama is a wonderful fiber to spin and knit. It is highly insulating and has a decent drape to it. I have spun to samples of llama, the first one was beautiful with a great staple length and the second, was clumpy and, what I believe, was second cuts. Take it from me, second cuts are not worth it!
Paco-Vicuna is a luxury fiber, it is rather expensive per ounce, but if you can find some, try it, you won't be sorry. It is very similar to camel, but it has a much longer staple length. It would be great blended with other fibers!
Lastly, the Guanaco, is one fiber that I have not been able to get my hand on, but I understand it is wonderful just like the Paco-Vicuna.
Now let's look at some spinning, shall we?
First to examine is baby alpaca. This light grey fiber was a real dream to spin! I spun 8 ounces total, the one on the left is worsted spun and the one on the left is spun semi-woolen, 2-ply. Note the difference in the two. While the worsted spun is spun fine it still has a lot of drape to it.
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| With the two next to each other, you can really see the difference. |
Next, we'll look at the llama. The first sample was bought from a local heard in New York. It was beautiful fiber, very easy to spin, with really wonderful drape. It was spun from roving. The photo doesn't give it justice in terms of color. The fiber is a red brown color with some white thrown in. This was from one llama, I do remember.
The second sample is the not so nice llama.
Note the halo around the ball. You can also see some of the VM that was in the fiber.
This is the single. The lumps are small clumps of short hair, this is why I say it is seconds. There was none of this in the first batch. This was from a different vendor.
This is the plied yarn. Again you can see the lumps and VM throughout the ball. This is a good example as to why you should always take a good look at the fiber you buy. This wasn't expensive, first warning sign, and I was so drawn to the black llama. Very disappointed.
On my spindle below, I have Paco-Vicuna. What a dream it was to spin. This was just a sample of the fiber. It is super soft, with a very fine micron count, and such a warm color.
In this, I wanted to show how fine it spun. This is next to a regular pencil. I highly recommend this fiber if you can find it!
Finally, we have camel. This is a very short fiber and difficult to spin on it's own. I have had the most success with it spinning on either my quill, or my charka. The fiber is very loft and is that wonderful camel color.
Again, note the size next to a pencil.
I hope you enjoyed this quick introduction on the Camel family. Happy spinning!
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