We grow the fibre we sell. Around 43 alpacas at Mulgoa in the Nepean Valley, mainly black and brown, shorn once a year. Every fleece on this page comes off one named animal and is never blended with another farm's clip.
Every fleece is tested, and we publish the numbers
Most sellers will tell you a fleece is soft. We will tell you it is 16.7 micron with a standard deviation of 3.0 and a 90 mm staple, because that is what the laboratory said.
Every fleece page carries the same four measured figures:
-
Micron — how the fibre will feel. Under 20 is next to skin.
-
Standard deviation — how uniform it is. Under 4 is very uniform, which means no coarse fibre hiding in the staple.
-
Comfort factor — the percentage of fibres under 30 micron.
-
Staple length — whether it is enjoyable to spin. 75 to 125 mm is the comfortable range, 90 to 100 mm the sweet spot.
We only list a fleece as a spinning fleece if it is under 24.5 micron with a staple of 75 mm or more. Anything that fails that test does not go on this page, whatever it would fetch.
Named whole fleeces, available now
-
Royal Dragon — ultrafine fawn, 16.7 micron, 90 mm staple, SD 3.0. The finest fleece we have. $125.
-
White Knight — superfine white, 19.9 micron, 90 mm staple, SD 4.0. Natural white takes dye cleanly. $110.
-
Ellen — fine solid black, 21.9 micron, 75 mm staple, SD 4.3. Garment weight, no dye needed. $90.
Each is a single fleece. Alpacas are shorn once a year, so when one sells there is no restock until the next clip.
Smaller quantities
Raw fawn fleece, 200g bag — raw and skirted, if you want to try a fleece before committing to a whole one.
Already prepared
If you would rather skip the washing and carding, we also sell undyed yarn and carded bumps spun in Australia from the same herd. Natural black and brown, 4 ply, 8 ply and 200g bumps.
What raw fleece actually means
Raw means unwashed. Our fleeces are skirted, so the neck, belly and britch are already off, but there will be some vegetable matter and dust and it needs washing before you spin it. Natural variation across a single fleece is normal and expected.
Shearing is 12 September
The whole clip comes off in one day and gets graded and photographed as it does. We keep the fibre range deliberately small — a handful of named fleeces rather than a catalogue — because a single animal produces one fleece a year and we would rather sell you a whole one you can trace than a bag of something anonymous.
If you would like to know what comes off the table this year, get in touch and we will let you know.
Browse all fleece
