Processing Suri Alpaca Fiber

After years of procrastinating, I finally got around to processing some of the raw alpaca fiber I bought in 2012. Literally YEARS! It is 2018 now!

I am no professional, so I really have no idea what I am doing. I watched a video on YouTube, but that hair looked nothing like the pile of matted mess I received in the mail. The hair in the video I watched seemed to be already separated and in manageable locks. 

The mass pictured to the right is a lot more tame that the one I have processed. This is the dirtiest batch out of the three I bought and was basically just hacked off the animal and shoved into a bag. I have yet to process this pile of hair and I have a feeling I might rip my own hair out along the way.

The bag of hair I have already combed and washed looked a little dirtier than the photo below. The hair was just as matted, if not more so.

I am not going to enjoy cleaning the other two batches. The pack of hair above and the pack I processed were the same size. Look at all the "waste" I ended up with! Is this normal?

I think I can at least make some dreadlocks with the waste material, right? I have a few characters that need dreadlocks anyway. But cleaning and dying THAT mess is going to be GREAT. 

Out of all the hair out of that 1oz package, I manged to get some decent locks I guess. The tops and bottoms are super stringy, so I bet I lose even MORE hair during the wig making process.

From now on, I am going to buy pre-processed hair that has already been washed, combed, and dyed! Unless I need a custom color and in that case I will buy white hair so I can dye it myself. At the time, however, pre-processed alpaca hair was INSANELY EXPENSIVE. The price has dropped considerably now that Etsy exists and has become popular.

So what took me so long to jump into this? Why haven't I done ANYTHING to the dolls I have bought since I got into this hobby?

Depression, folks. If you get it, great. If you don't, you won't.

Maybe I will write about those things at a later date...maybe I won't.