Furbie stripped and alpaca felted

Well, my first attempt with the Alpaca . My very fat cat posed for this one . This took much longer then I thought it would...about 8 hours . I built up the body shape using a hand knit alpaca sweater that I had wet felted . It was a beautiful "looking" sweater but who ever knitted it had not removed the guard hairs and it was to itchy to wear but perfect for shaping onto the furbie frame . After sewing the basic shape, I laid down the alpaca trying to keep natural hair direction in mind and gently poked to try and avoid "poke holes...( I hate those) .
Most of the feber I used for this one was from "Frugal Farms Alpaca" and althought it looked beautiful and felt soft ....there was a lot more VM then I had originally realized . The seller was completely honest about this and the price reflected the inconvenience...only $1.00 an ounce....very frugal and perfect for a first project . I think picking it out added another hour to the felting however . Alpca feels alot like Marino...maybe even softer, so it does take a bit longer to get it to felt but is stayed much softer then the quicker felting Romney .

The tummy is a bit of sheep fur and the lighter paw color is some of the fiber from North Star Alpaca . Now that I think I have the basic idea of working with this....I am going to try and make this next little animal purely out of her fiber...(Yea, no VM to pick out...should go quicker ) .