Alpaca-rose neckwarmer

It's finished!! The alpaca-rose fabric is complete 😍 and I am absolutely utterly delighted with it 🥰 the drape and weight are incredible and the softness and sheen just sublime 😁 this one has our very own gotland fleeces in the weft too! 
Please note the winter light made it look bluer than it is, it's a slighter less vivid blue colour in real life! 
First the rose fibers have to be created. The rose plants are broken down using an emzyme and the resulting soup is passed through a spinneret to create strands that can be collected as fiber. This is the same process as used to create bamboo, rayon and many other fibers however the manufactures of this rose fiber used a closed-loop system meaning no waste and significantly less environmental impact. It also doesn't alter the structure of the rose cellulose meaning it is still a natural organic product. The resulting fibers are incredibly soft, shiny and strong! The Border Mill, who also spin my gotland wool, then combine it with pure British alpaca  for utter luxury! The blended fibers are carded, twisted into rolags, spun into single ply yarn, plied into two ply yarn and skeined. The skeins are individually hand dyed meaning each one has subtle variations and colour changes! I then laid extra for them to recone the yarn so we could use it for weaving. 
When the yarn arrived Martha first made the warp, we beamed it onto the loom, then tied all 696 threads to the threads of the old warp. This was pulled onto the loom and weaving could finally start! Much slower than normal Martha had to take great care with this yarn as the slippery soft threads are harder to weave than regular yarn. Finally it was finished though and I could cut it into throws, scarves and neckwarmers. These I then washed by hand to remove any residues from the loom and excess dye! I then fringed the edges and topstitched for strength, then added labels and buttons. 
It was definitely a labour of love (and of my wallet 😅) but oh my gosh so worth it, these neckwarmers keep you sumptuously warm and stylish with handmade ceramic buttons for fastening 
26cm x 83cm approx.