Alpaca dyes well. It is a protein fibre, so acid dyes and food colouring both work on it exactly as they do on wool. The differences are worth knowing before you commit a good fleece to a dye pot.
The natural colour is your base, not a blank page
This is the whole thing. Dye is transparent. Whatever colour sits underneath shows through, so the same dye bath gives four different results on our four fleece colours.
White
The only true blank canvas. Colours come out clean and bright and close to what the dye promises. If you dye regularly, white is what you buy.
Fawn
A warm base. It pushes everything golden. Yellows and oranges glow, reds go rich and slightly rusty, blues turn towards teal, and pure cool colours are simply not available to you. It is a lovely base if you work in an autumn palette and a frustrating one if you want a clear cool blue.
Brown
Deep and muting. You will get sophisticated, slightly muddy versions of whatever you use, which can be beautiful and is very hard to achieve any other way. Do not expect brightness.
Black
Do not dye it. There is nothing a dye pot can add to a good black fleece, and the honest reason to buy natural black is that it saves you from dyeing at all. Overdyeing black at most shifts the undertone slightly, and you have spent an afternoon to achieve almost nothing.
Alpaca specific things to expect
It takes dye more slowly than wool. The smoother fibre surface means the dye has less to grab. Be patient, keep the temperature up, and give it longer than a wool recipe suggests.
Heat and agitation are still the enemy. Everything that felts fibre in a wash bath also felts it in a dye pot. Bring the temperature up slowly, do not stir, and cool it down slowly.
The lustre survives. Alpaca has a clean, refined sheen rather than a high shine, and dyeing does not kill it. A dyed alpaca yarn keeps a depth that a dyed acrylic never has.
Dye before or after spinning, not during. Both work. Dyeing loose fibre lets you blend colours at the carding stage for heathered effects. Dyeing finished skeins is faster and gives flat, even colour. Dyeing a half spun single is asking for trouble.
When to dye and when not to
Dye when you want a colour that does not occur in an alpaca. Dye when a project needs consistency across a large amount of fibre. Dye when you enjoy it, which is a perfectly good reason on its own.
Do not dye when the fleece already has the depth you are after. Natural dark fibre carries variation that flat dye cannot replicate, shifting between charcoal and deep brown depending on the light and the twist. That is not something to paint over.
Practical order of work
- Skirt the fleece.
- Wash it properly. Dye will not take evenly on fibre that still has dirt in it.
- Dry it.
- Dye, either as loose fibre or as spun skeins.
- Rinse until the water runs clear, at the same temperature as the dye bath.
- Dry flat, out of direct sun.
If you dye, buy white
We now sell raw white alpaca fleece by the kilo, $40 a 1kg bag plus postage, off our own herd at Mulgoa. Fawn, brown and black are there too, all undyed.
See also: how to wash raw alpaca fleece before you dye it.