Llama Yarn in the Making - Springtime Shearing

I'm hoping our last bit of cold weather is past us now, because I have started shearing the llamas. It was toasty warm today, and I don't want them to be miserable and hot in their full fleece. I have always tried to be very careful when I'm shearing so as not to include any extra VM (vegetable matter) in the bagged fleece, but now that I have added the experiences of taking the fiber to the mill for processing, and working with the yarn, I'm even more careful. I want my customers to be as thrilled with the llama batts, felts, rovings and yarn as I am!

It isn't easy getting a fleece from initial growth, to shearing, to sorting and picking debris, to processing and then to final product. You have to pay attention to everything from proper feeding and housing of your llama to grooming techniques and the timing of shearing.

I'm not an expert by any means. I keep soaking in as much information as I can from others more experienced than I am, and from books and websites. One of the best things I did was to make a visit to a mill and to put my hands in some other fleeces. I'm learning about which fleeces would be nice to combine with other types of fiber or with other llamas' fleeces.

I started today with Hard Rock's Simply Stunning (photo above). She is due to have her cria in a few days, and I thought she would appreciate having the weight of her fleece sheared off so she could stay cooler. Also, her fiber doesn't pick up a lot of debris as she is grazing and hanging out doing llama things, so I knew I could get her sheared fairly quickly this morning before work. I use the blower on the llamas before shearing so I can get most of the dust and VM out of their coats before I turn on the clippers. Her gorgeous fleece is in the photo below. I haven't weighed it yet, but she's a big gal, and she provided lots of fiber!

This evening, I worked on LUA's Moonlighter's Heartsong. I separated her fiber into a bag of prime fleece that was all black, and then a second bag of neck fleece that was a mix of white and black fiber. I'll probably combine the latter with something else for processing.

 

I'm so excited about how both fleeces have turned out so clean, soft and lovely. They will become beautiful beautiful yarn. You can find our yarn, rovings, batts and felted batts at our Etsy store:  heartsongllamas.

Here are a couple of "after" photos. They always look so silly, but they love to frolic and roll after they've been sheared. It's a fun llama day!