Work was frustrating enough today that I decided to take a “lunch break” and go outside in the 115-degree-heat-index-tropical-storm-on-the-horizon weather to wash some of the alpaca fleece I recently acquired from a local source (didn’t actually learn that lesson, did we?).

I really did not learn that lesson. The staple is so short that I suspect I will have to use the fleece for felting, although I’m not sure how to get it clean enough to do even that.

Did I mention that I started a YouTube channel? Well, I did. It’s Fred’s Dirty Wool Habit, and I’ve already put something only wool adjacent on it. I’ve been holding back a video of my first time trying to spin cotton. No point in that anymore, I suppose.

When I started this endeavor, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. When it started raining, the sun was shining and the sky was still mostly blue. Then it stopped. By the time I was ready to dry my portion of alpaca fleece, the heavens were ready to open, so I sought some celestial protection (the fleece is under the bin).

All in all, my experience with alpaca so far has been rather disappointing (along the lines of what am I even doing with all this gross hair?). I forgot to take a photo of the bit I washed, which is fine because it still has sand in it, and I’ll have to try again, like maybe in September.

To console myself, tonight I’m washing the yarn I made from Elekra’s rooed fleece that I bought last year around this time. I finally finished spinning the whole fleece.

Evidently, it really needed to be washed. There was quite a bit of lanolin still in the yarn. More pics will come after drying.