They are expensive are they worth the price ? How much warmth in degrees c does it add to your sleeping system they certainly look lightweight.
Alpaca wool sleeping bag liner
- Thread starter Poacherman
- Start date
Something I am interested in as well.
A mate of mine has a lot fleece to spin, just got enough to make it worth sending to a commercial plant.
I have struggled to spin it by hand. I have great admiration for those who can do it!
A mate of mine has a lot fleece to spin, just got enough to make it worth sending to a commercial plant.
I have struggled to spin it by hand. I have great admiration for those who can do it!
Yes I'd struggle to do that something to order my gf to do I think she shed enjoy it anyway.
Indeed, if you have the quantity to get it spun professionally then I’d recommend you do so. You are much more likely to get a good product with less wastage. You are going to need a fine yarn for your bag liner. If you can get it woven as well so much the better.
You will save an incredible amount of time.
My wife spins using an old wooden wheel which she enjoys immensely as a relaxation but enough wool to make a pair of socks takes ages.
She has a wooden production line:
There is something that looks like a wooden version of an iron maiden, full of opposing six inch nails which roughly lines stuff up and removes leaves, thorns and crap. Then comes the carding machine which rips the fibres apart and lines them up into a “top”. Then it goes through the carder again to blend alpaca and sheep wool. Then she spins it but it takes two bobbins full to then ply into one useable bobbin. This is wound onto a wooden carousel to form skeins. Finally (almost) it is wound into balls on a little machine called a niddy-noddy that I’ve watched mesmerised so many times and still don’t understand what it’s actually doing.
Then she knits it or weaves it.
Like me she’s retired, did you guess? This it’s just one of her very many textile skills.
Unlike me she is a perfectionist and wins prizes.
I do not know the thermal advantage of an alpaca sleeping bag liner but I know it will feel absolutely wonderful.
- but I’d recommend buying it!!!!!
I like my alpaca socks. My alpaca sweaters wear out too soon. Without some synthetic fiber in the mix, the alpaca yarn falls apart. Not dissing the idea of an alpaca liner, but try this: Merino wool liner.
Looks like alpaca wool fiber is hollow, that would explain it's warmth in textile. As very fine fiber it is probably not very resistant to heavy use wear.
I bought some alpaca wool (possibly blended with merino) socks from Nordic Outdoors in Keswick. Those socks shed fibres like nothing I have ever seen! Take feet out of boots and there were drifts of loose fibres that had been rubbed out of the socks' outer surface. I washed them and they covered all the other stuff in the wash with hair. One day I accidentally washed them too warm and they shrank to the size of baby booties...I did not mourn their passing, other than the waste of money.
I've suspected for a while that a lot of Alpaca wool is actually mixed with something else as it just doesn't bind up like sheep wool. I can just about spin Huacaya but it's not strong, Suri feels like human hair and is "slipperier than a very slippery thing"!
I think my first attempt I over carded it (the Iron Maiden Pattree mentions) and it probably didn't need it.
Unspun it makes a very warm filler for quilts. Put it this way dogs have very warm beds.
Commercial spinning is way we'll go I think.
Plus the Roses are doing great on the poop.
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