Fleeces-to-Go

07/12/2025

At last! 🎆 Just finished skirting the last fleece for the 2025 AOA National Fleece show . Now to pack them up and get ready to load out 112 fleeces to transport on Monday morning.

Thank you to all my clients for trusting me to prepare your fleeces. I always fall deeper in love with alpaca fleece every time I skirt them. You are producing some amazing fleece! I am wishing all you much success!

I will be at the show this upcoming week as a volunteer. It’s hard work and I encourage everyone to volunteer to work at a fleece show at least once.

I have a couple of other big projects awaiting me when I return.

07/01/2025

Let’s talk about uniformity of color.

When I teach skirting I always talk about color spots in a fleece. Some fleeces can have spots by nature like appaloosas and grays. But some solid color fleeces can show up with spots too. When skirting for competition, always take out spots because the fleece will loose points in the uniformity of color score. Does taking out spots effect your weight score? Not usually. Is it against the rules to take out spots? No.
The pictures below are spots I took out of a stunning white fleece. The alpaca didn’t get the memo she was supposed to be fawn and these spots hint at her ability to produce that color with a brown spot and several fawn spots. I took out the spots and weighed them - that little amount of fluff did not even register.

For mill processing, I do the same and toss the spots like these in with a fawn fleece for processing. When I hand process a fleece I add in these spots by hand on my carder if I want a stripe to make an art batt.

For gray fleeces I do take out spots if they are small, especially silver grays that have just a few black spots.

Any mill owners want to chime in on how you suggest fleece owners handle spots in fleeces they send you?

06/27/2025

I’m loving the finess, crimp and bundling in the sexy little fleece.

06/10/2025

Here’s a picture of a fleece I am skirting. You can see the shape of the blanket. I’ve done one side just taking off the corse fibers and those that are too short( less than 3 inches) My next round will be the micron check to see how close the edges are to the pulled samples. On this fleece its easy to see that the lighter fiber at the edges has more guard hair and a bolder crimp. It is a much higher micron and needs to come off.

I do keep a bin for fiber I skirt off that can be used in other ways such as wet felting, a felted sheet, insoles or rug yarn. Second cuts, arm pit hair, the birdnest area full of hay and poopy fiber all go into the mulch bag.

For those that are just learning to skirt fleece, I suggest using a ruler as a tool to help decide what to take off of the edges.
Hope these pictures help and inspire others to get your fleece out of the barn.

Questions? Feel free to contact me.

06/07/2025

I’ve reached my limit for accepting fleece to skirt for the National AOA Fleece Show. Unless I have already confirmed that I’m holding a spot for you, at this time I am full. I will reacess where I am in two weeks. I am behind due to a rather nasty case of Bronchitis . Yes, I’m wearing a mask.
Pictures of some lovelies for attention.

04/17/2025

This is noodling on the floor at shearing by volunteer 4-H students. The noodle is the moved to a table where it is quickly evaluated, labled, taped and then put in proper bin. Please note that the side edges of the paper do not have to touch when rolling up the fleece.

04/16/2025

I sketched this quickly when someone asked me to explain how to noodle a fleece at shearing. First, make sure you have room to pull the paper away from the alpaca and out of the way of your shearer. You don’t want to slow him/her down or cause anyone to get hurt. I will try and get a video made this week.

03/20/2025

I have raised my fee for skirting and prepping fleeces for show to $40 a fleece. Fleeces entered into the 2025 National Fleece Show will be hand delivered to the show. I am taking RSVP's to prepare fleeces as last year I maxed out at 95 fleeces.

10/28/2024

Going to the Buckeye Alpaca Show? Don’t forget to bring your fleeces!

10/18/2024

I will be at the Buckeye Show in two weeks! My booth will be on the upper level by the ladies restroom.
I will accept fleeces to prep for show or mill as a fund raiser for the OSU veterinarian scholarship fund. After prep and skirting you can either take them to Theresa Jewell or America’s Natural Fiberworks right there at the show for processing. If I am able to finish them at the show, you can take them home and enter them in the fleece show at the TXOLAN Alpaca Spectacularshow in mid-February or leave with me to ship them at only the shipping cost ( no handling fee). We would appreciate a donation of $40 per fleece prepped to be made to the Buckeye Large Animal Scholarship Fund at OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. Donations can be paid at the show by credit card, check, or cash. This is a charitable donation!

I hope you spend a couple of minutes now and pull out your best fleece and get it packed to bring to the show in two weeks.

Reach out to me if you have any questions.
Photo for attention of Dominant’s Richochette 2024 National Fawn Fleece Champion and Spirit of the Industry Award winner.

09/02/2024

I’m off to Florida on Friday to do a workshop for the Florida Alpaca Breeders Association on Sunday. I’ve titled the seminar “Got Fleece? Now What?” I will be teaching some simple ways to evaluate your fiber for its best use and then we will dive into a hands on skirting of fleece and put the tools I’ve presented to work.
There’s still a little room for last minute participants.

08/17/2024

This was the Humpty Dumpty fleece that came to shoved in a bag from shearing ( through no fault of the owner). It took me some time to put it back together but it was worth it as it has such a soft hand. Congratulations Fulcrum Farms.

Fulcrum’s Krennic, just took a blue. 1st out of 6! This will look great next to his color champion banner 😉🥳😍

I’m eager to bring his fleece home and spin it into yarn. Since our son chose his name (and is keeping him for his Grey program) I’m planning to make him a scarf or perhaps some hand warmers with it. 🥰

Also wanted to say thank you to Char Johnson for skirting his fleece for us! We appreciate your hard work!! 🫂