Wetfelting with baby huacaya alpaca

[caterina]

Hello.
I bought a baby huacaya alpaca fleece and I am experimenting with wetfelting with it.
First of all, a baby alpaca fleece is...quite a lot of fleece! I was afraid that it would not be enough for a small chair cover,I have no idea of sizes for baby alpacas! but it seems to actually be double the amount I thought. Because of this, I am confident that I will be able to experiment a little bit.

I used maybe half the fleece in order to try wet felting a sort of viking rug/blanket that I planned to use as a throw on a small chair. As usually I skipped all the planning part and dived headfirst in it: as usual, now I wish that I researched a bit how those kind of rugs are really made...

Anyway, I met some challenges so far. First of all, the fleece was all in bits or loosely connected strips. When I say "loosely connected" I mean very loosely. So I had to kind of lay them out minding the changing colours of the locks, so that it would not seem a jumble of random locks.

Secondly,the layout was tricky, as the fiber is soooo fluffy and soft that it is very hard to gauge the thickness of your layout. I had to spend a lot patting the fiber to understand where I needed to add more. It was in a lot of places, because the tufts easily led to holes between each other.

As it was so fluffy, it needed a lot of water. I soaped and rubbed, and reversed it and watered and soaped and rubbed. At this point, most fiber seemed not moving, and I used a bit of sander for the areas that were still suspect. There did not seem to be holes and I kept the sander to a minimum.
I started a bit of rolling in one direction.

Then I had to stop for the day, as my family wanted dinner, so I decided that rinsing the whole thing would not be bad, as sometimes too much soap can trick you into thinking that something is fine when it is not. Well,yes,this was one of those times! When I put the thing in the water,
Lots of holes and loose fibers started to appear the more I rinsed it.

It holds but barely. Well, I had not worked on it a lot, so it's probably my fault for underestimating it.

I have left it to dry, and I am thinking about what to do next.
First of all, I started hand carding some of the most VM-riddled locks, and it is slow-going, but I am thinking that if I can use the carded fiber to give a regular structure underneath the wetfelted locks, I may still salvage the lot.

If that works, I may lay a background of carded alpaca and the rest of the fleece over it, as my next try (I still have half of the fleece, so I may as well try different solutions)

I may also want to research on how to make that type of throw, eh! :-)

[Ann @ frabjous fabrica]

It's easy to say now, but I think I would have rolled up the felted fleece in a piece of fabric/netting (whatever you were covering it with to work it) and rinsed the whole thing.  That is if it had to be rinsed at that time, personally I would have just left it as it was laid out and soapy.  But then I would have been able to leave it on my work table in my workshop - a bit difficult if you were working on a surface that was needed for something else.
I think the fibres would have been more likely to felt if you had laid the tufts out on a layer of carded fibres so that they had something to hang on to.

I must admit that I'm not sure what it is you are trying to make.  I tried asking google what a viking blanket was but all it seemed to come up with was faux fur throws or odd shaped shawl/cloaks with hoods with funny celtic birds and animals printed on them.

If you are going to have another go with the rest of your alpaca rather than try again with the first effort, you could turn that (the first effort) into something else to avoid wasting your fibres. You could lay the tufts out again and then add some carded fibre on top and make it into something else, like several scarves or a wrap.  So that you don't have to use any more of the alpaca you have earmarked for the viking blanket, you could use merino as the carded fibre so that it can grab on to the alpaca.

Whatever you do do, I hope it works for you in the end.

[caterina]

Apr 1, 2023 20:42:55 GMT Ann @ frabjous fabrica said:

It's easy to say now, but I think I would have rolled up the felted fleece in a piece of fabric/netting (whatever you were covering it with to work it) and rinsed the whole thing.  That is if it had to be rinsed at that time, personally I would have just left it as it was laid out and soapy.  But then I would have been able to leave it on my work table in my workshop - a bit difficult if you were working on a surface that was needed for something else.
I think the fibres would have been more likely to felt if you had laid the tufts out on a layer of carded fibres so that they had something to hang on to.

I must admit that I'm not sure what it is you are trying to make.  I tried asking google what a viking blanket was but all it seemed to come up with was faux fur throws or odd shaped shawl/cloaks with hoods with funny celtic birds and animals printed on them.

If you are going to have another go with the rest of your alpaca rather than try again with the first effort, you could turn that (the first effort) into something else to avoid wasting your fibres. You could lay the tufts out again and then add some carded fibre on top and make it into something else, like several scarves or a wrap.  So that you don't have to use any more of the alpaca you have earmarked for the viking blanket, you could use merino as the carded fibre so that it can grab on to the alpaca.

Whatever you do do, I hope it works for you in the end.

I agree with you, Ann, all that you said above.
I wish to try and work the failed blanket more, with carded fibers. Only if I really can't see a road forward there, I am going to reuse those half-felted fibers for something else.
Definitely I am going to lay out a layer of carded fibre first, next time!

I just realised that I created this thread in the wrong place, under Needle felt instead of Wet felt as I wanted! I am not sure, can I move it to the right place or can Ruth move it?

[lyn]

Keep going Caterina - your efforts will pay off as the only way to learn about working with alpaca is actually doing it

[caterina]

Apr 2, 2023 6:45:49 GMT lyn said:

Keep going Caterina - your efforts will pay off as the only way to learn about working with alpaca is actually doing it

Yes, I feel like I am exploring a new Country! It is exciting, although not turning out as expected I still feel that it is rewarding for the experience that I am getting with that fiber and I can share with you. And I can get a blog article from it, if nothing else :-)

I still love this fiber to bits, its softness is wonderful, and I am not giving up working with it, yet! I just have to figure out how! Luckily, a whole fleece is a lot of fiber, I have leisure to try more things.

[MTRuth]

Perhaps making a small sample first might have been a better idea, but now that you have jumped in, just keep going. I'm sure that you can make something with what you have. I do think that most of the "fake sheepskin rugs", use a backing of merino or other wool that holds the locks in place at the ends. Do you have a photo of what it looks like so far?

[caterina]

Apr 2, 2023 15:17:47 GMT MTRuth said:

Perhaps making a small sample first might have been a better idea, but now that you have jumped in, just keep going. I'm sure that you can make something with what you have. I do think that most of the "fake sheepskin rugs", use a backing of merino or other wool that holds the locks in place at the ends. Do you have a photo of what it looks like so far?

Thank you for moving the thread here, in its right place, Ruth.
Yes, I concur that I have this bad habit of not starting with a sensible sample!

I have now read a process method article on those fake sheepskin rugs, and you are right, they use a layer of carded wool and then they put all the locks on top of it. That particular lady did no rubbing, only rolling of the whole thing, but left it to soak well in soaped water before starting the rolling, and paused frequently to check on the locks in between around a 600 rollings.

My end result is not too bad, but full of holes, especially now that I have teased a lot of locks upright. I think that I can still re-work it, and end up with a better result. I will show you a photo, but right now my kids are using the table for art experiments, as they are on holiday! I will have to wait a bit to take the full-lenght photo.

[caterina]

Here is the photo of the result up to now.
www.dropbox.com/s/feglhev18n3c7hi/IMG_20230403_182854.jpg?dl=0

I did not have time to work on it again,yet, apart from fluffing up a bit some of the locks, but not finished with that either.

[Ann @ frabjous fabrica]

Ah, now I can see what you are trying to do and I can appreciate why you had problems to begin with. My alpaca felting was just to lay out the fibres in the same manner as for merino to make a scarf - and yes beautifully soft and comforting.
I look forward to seeing how you us the rest of your alpaca in the next attempt.

[MTRuth]

I don't think that's a bad result at all. I think the holes add to the design. Perhaps you could add other components with stitching and make a wall piece out of it?

[caterina]

Thank you, Ann and Ruth.
I am not giving up with this rug/blanket yet. If nothing will work, I can still cut it up or use it in something else, but it is so soft that I would like to use it for wearables, if I have to re-use it. Neck warmers? Shawls?

I can see that it is still at the pre-felt stage, it does not look an impossible task to lay it on a layer of carded fibers, fill up holes by shifting bits closer and adding a few more locks where needed, and rework it.
I am carding the dirtier locks, it is slow going as I only have pet brushes, no drum carder or anything. Once I have enough, I will try my idea.

[Shepherdess]

It is fluffier than I expected. I think if you push it together and add wool to the back you should get it to where you want it.