Spinning Alpaca

Washing Alpaca in cold water in Australia Queensland in Winter.

Recently I have used Tantech Scour which i thought was overkill for my alpaca fibre . It actually made it feel like a felted mess. I only used hot tap water and my water temp here is quite low.
It will be perfect for my merino fleece though.
Today I washed some alpaca fleece after skirting and tumbling it in my handmade tumbler to get all the dust out.  I then fill a larger black plastic container with cold water straight from the hose. After tumbling I lifted the fibre out into a large mesh table cover and placed it into the black container with cold water with dawn dishwashing liquid added to it after I turned the hose off. I don't want a big bubbly mess.
I then placed the alpaca into the cold water solution and let it sit for about 2 hours. I pressed down on it with my hands but didn't agitate the water at any stage.
I lifted out the mesh containing the alpaca fibre and the dirty water ran out of it. I placed it into a container and repeated this sequence 3 or 4 times over the day. Then finally all clean I spun the fibre in my small washing machine . It has turned out so much better than washing in hot water. As alpaca doesn't have grease hot water is so unnecessary but the dust in this fibre in particular was terrible.
It is now drying away on my racks in my tiny shed that my darling hubby put together just for my alpaca obsession.
I will put some photos up tomorrow just to remind myself of my process.
My spinning adventure first started November last year.
My husband bought be a secondhand ashford traditional spinning wheel.
I love spinning alpaca and have bought and been given many fleeces .
They have the softest fibre and spinning is a delight. I have huacaya and suri alpaca fibre/fleece.
I do have 2 merino fleeces but boy were they greasy and used quite alot of water to clean.
I am in the process of knitting a grey lap blanket for myself and it feels fantastic. The lovely boy that belongs to this fleece's name is Igor.
This is the spinning wheel that started it all.

and here is the traveller below that I bought not long after it was missing the flyer but in beautiful condition and cost me $25.00 but the flyer to replace it was an expensive adventure and finding out the year this was manufactured never happened.

and this is my first spinning
and handknit from alpaca fleece that I was kindly given to start spinning. I was actually given 2 whole fleeces.
So in good faith my very first spinning project would go to those kind people.

This is the blanket that I am knitting for myself. Its not yet finished but it is weightless, soft and cuddly.