Just curious

[linaelyn]

Can you felt alpaca? Anyone tried it?

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

Yes. I've never done it but I have a friend who owns alpaca and she has felted objects made from her alpaca's wool.

[linaelyn]

Thanks! Now that I think about it, I think my sister has a felted alpaca nativity scene! At least, I think it's alpaca, since the traditional creche-shepherds seem to be herding LLAMAS.

[dragovianknight]

It felts like crazy. I've done it without even trying. *facepalm*

[linaelyn]

That's very reassuring! Thank you for the info.

[medrin]

I've never tried it but I've seen patterns for felted alpaca, so I would guess, yes. (Otherwise the pattern makers are lying liars who lie.)

[linaelyn]

Excellent! Thanks so much. Three "yes" answers and zero "I don't think so"s and I'm going for it.

[sedge]

My one word of caution: don't felt something that has alpaca yarn and wool yarn in different locations. They felt at different rates.

Otherwise, have at it!

[linaelyn]

THANK YOU! I *am* working with both wool and alpaca yarn, but I'm knitting it two-strands-together, so I ought to come out uniform throughout. Just to be really sure, I'll hand-felt it on the stovetop, rather than machine-felting.

[sedge]

You might try a swatch, just to see?

Ah. I see from below that you're planning a swatch.

[neotoma]

I've seen it done with a needle-felting machine, but I got the impression that it's not easy.

If you're planning on knitting and felting/fulling an object, you'll want to try a test-swatch first.

[hivesofactivity]

I had to go and google "needle-felting" to find out what it was - I didn't know that had a name!

[linaelyn]

With this project (a felted bowl for my partner's pocket contents) I was concerned that I might run out of yarn before I run out of bowl, but it looks like I'll have enough left over for a test swatch. I'll do that.

Thanks for the input! :-)