The best fleece - Toppy

Our alpaca Top Deck came to us by default.  We went to purchase a grey alpaca called Scrumpy and as Toppy was his best mate, he had to come along too.  The breeder named him Top Deck presumably as he is chocolate colour and has white front feet. 

 

Toppy has a definite personality - very wiry and lots of mumbling and squirming when you try to halter him.  He sort of comes across as a grumpy little old man.  When you look out in the paddock you usually still see Scrumpy somewhere in the vacinity of Toppy - they are now called the twins, though they look nothing alike.  One day the boys were having a paddle in the dam and Toppy was right near our llama Udokan who is a similar colour - what a contrast is size!

When Toppy was shorn last September, he was not quite 2 years old.  The shearer told us it was a very good fleece, so I have savoured the idea of spinning it for the last 6 months.  Recently I spent a couple of days cleaning the vegetable matter out of it and then gave the fleece to Jenny (who has a wool mill) to process into bumps ready for spinnng.  I used some of the necks/legs part of the fleece to also try felting it.  See pic of the 5 beautiful balls of wool and a square of felt.  The white patches in the felt are the result of randomly dropping pieces of silk in the wool during the felting process.

Top Deck looks like he is producing another wonderful fleece again this year, so I can't wait till shearing time comes around again.