Before any processing can commence, the Alpaca Fibre is sorted & graded. The Fibre is graded for it’s Micron, Length, Colour, Strength & amount of Vegetable Matter that it contains.

The Alpaca Fibre is then placed in a “Tumbler” to remove any excess dirt & vegetable matter.

Want to learn more about how to prepare your fleece? Check out our page “Fleece Preparation”

The Alpaca fibre is then fed through a “Picker” which helps to open the staples, allowing for the Alpaca Fibre to be washed more thoroughly.

The Alpaca Fibre is then placed in a specific designed washing machine at a set temperature. This helps to open up the fibre and release any trapped dirt.

Next the Alpaca Fibre will be laid out on drying racks. This can take multiple days to dry.

The clean Alpaca Fibre is then put through the “Dehairer”. This is where the coarse fibres & vegetable matter are further separated from the quality fibres.

The Alpaca fibres are then placed through the “Carder”. This machine is considered one of the most important components of the whole production line.

This machine can produce Rovings (which will be used to spin into Yarn), Rovings (which can be sold & used by hand spinners) or Batts (commonly used for Felting).

The ‘Rovings’ from the “Carder” are then put through the “Draw Frame”. This machine helps to align the Fibres by adding consistency to make it ready for the spinner.

This would have to be the most exciting step as you get to see all your hard work starting to take shape.

After being ‘Drafted’ the ‘Rovings’ are then passed through the “Spinner”. This creates a single strand of the desired thickness & length.

The next step is ‘Plying’ the single strands from the ‘Spinner’ together to incorporate a twist. This is done with the “Plyer”.

The ‘Plied Yarn’ is then pulled through a “Steaming Chamber” & “Drying Barrel” under slight tension. This helps to balance the yarn & further set the twist.

This is the final stage of production.

Depending on the request the ‘Yarn’ will be further sent to one of these machines for completion:

“Ball Winder”, “Skein Winder” or “Cone Winder”.