Raw fleece arrives exactly as it came off the animal. That is the point of buying it, and it is also the part that puts people off. The good news is that alpaca is considerably easier to wash than sheep's wool, because it carries far less grease. There is no lanolin to strip, so you are removing dust, suint and vegetable matter rather than fighting a waxy coating.
This is the method we use, written plainly. It is not the only way.
Before you start
Skirt first, wash second. Tip the fleece out on a table or an old sheet and pull out the obvious rubbish: second cuts, matted tips, anything with a lot of vegetable matter, and the short pieces from the belly and legs. It feels wasteful the first time. It is not. Washing rubbish just gives you clean rubbish, and every gram you wash costs you time.
Weigh what is left. That is your real yield, and it is the number worth writing on the bag.
Work in small batches. About 100 grams per wash is comfortable in a kitchen sink and it lets you keep control of the water. A whole kilo at once is how fleece gets felted.
What you need
- Two or three basins, or a sink you can fill and empty quickly
- A mesh laundry bag or an old pillowcase
- Wool wash, or a plain dish detergent with no additives
- A thermometer, or a reliable hot tap and a bit of judgement
- A towel and a flat drying rack
The method
1. Fill first, then add the fleece
Run the water before the fibre goes anywhere near it. Hot, around 60 degrees, which is hotter than comfortable to touch. Add a small squirt of wool wash and swirl it through. Never run water directly onto fleece.
2. Lower it in and leave it alone
Put the fleece into the mesh bag, lower it into the water and push it under gently. Then stop touching it. Fifteen to twenty minutes. Agitation plus heat is exactly the combination that felts fibre, so the discipline here is doing nothing.
3. Lift, drain, repeat
Lift the bag out and let it drain. Do not wring it. Empty the basin, refill at the same temperature with fresh wash, and repeat. Most alpaca is clean after two wash baths. A dirty paddock fleece might want three.
4. Rinse at the same temperature
This is the step people get wrong. The rinse water must be about the same temperature as the wash water. A cold rinse after a hot wash is a thermal shock and it will felt the fibre. Two rinses, same routine, no agitation.
5. Dry flat
Press the water out in a towel, then spread the fleece on a rack somewhere with air moving. Not in direct sun, which can make the tips brittle, and not on a heater. It will take a day or two depending on the weather.
What you should expect to lose
A raw fleece loses weight in washing, and how much depends on the animal and how hard you skirted. Alpaca generally loses less than sheep's wool because there is no grease to remove, but you will still lose dust and vegetable matter. Weigh your fibre clean and dry before you plan a project around it rather than working from the bag weight.
The five mistakes
- Running the tap onto the fleece. Fill first. Always.
- Stirring it. There is nothing to stir. Heat and detergent do the work.
- A cold rinse. Match the temperatures.
- Too much at once. Small batches wash better and felt less.
- Wringing it out. Press, never twist.
Dark fleece needs a second look
Black and dark brown fleece hides its faults. Vegetable matter, weathered tips and the odd white guard hair are all much harder to see than they are in white fibre, and you will find them after washing rather than before. Spread dark fleece out in good natural light while it is still dry and go over it properly. It saves picking them out of a rolag later.
Then what
Once it is clean and dry you can flick card, drum card or comb it depending on the yarn you want. Carding gives an airy, woollen style preparation with loft. Combing aligns the fibres for a smoother, more lustrous worsted yarn. Neither is better. They make different cloth.
Our own fleece
We sell raw fleece off our own herd at Mulgoa in western Sydney, skirted but unwashed, in natural black, brown, fawn and white. $40 a 1kg bag plus postage. Undyed and never blended with fibre from anywhere else.
If you would rather skip this stage entirely, our carded bumps are already scoured and carded and ready to spin.
See also: choosing alpaca fleece for hand spinning and what you can make from alpaca fleece.