Crimp:  The natural curl in Huacaya alpaca fiber, grown into the fiber from the follicle.  Fibers vary widely in their crimp configuration.  Crimp gives alpaca natural resilience and elasticity.

Cuticle:  Outer scale-like surface of the alpaca fiber, visible only under electronic microscope.

Felting:  A process which produces a textile composed wholly of any one or combination of new, reprocessed or reused alpaca fibers, physically interlocked by the inherent felting properties of alpaca.  Felt is produced by a combination of mechanical and chemical action, moisture and heat, but without weaving, knitting, stitching, thermal bonding or adhesives.

Fineness:   The micron count of individual fibers.

Fleece:  the fiber from a single, live alpaca in the shorn and unwashed state.

Grading:  The process of defining the average micron count of select quantities of fleece.

Guard Hair:  A medullated animal fiber in which the diameter of the medulla is more than 60% of the diameter.

Lock:  A small, approximately pencil-size bit of fiber than tends to cling together when shorn from the alpaca.

Luster:  The luster is determined by the amount of light reflected by the fiber.  Alpaca differs in amount and character of luster, depending both on the structure of the fiber surface and on the size and straightness of the fibers.  Suri Fiber is thought to have more luster than Huacaya fiber.

Medulla Fiber:  The more or less continuous, hollow, cellular space inside most medium and coarse alpaca fibers.  It is present in the fine fibers to a limited extent, but may form as much as 90% of guard hair.

Noils:  The short alpaca fibers removed from the comb in the process of manufacturing tops.  The noils and the fiber from which they are combed are classed under the same quality number.  Noils are used in the production of woolen goods.

Roving:  A slightly twisted sliver or roll of alpaca fiber, also called the rove, produced during processing before the fiber is further drawn and spun into yarn.

Scouring:  The actual washing of dirt and foreign matter from alpaca fleece.  This is usually done in a lukewarm, neutral solution, followed by clear-water rinses.

Shearing:  The removal of fleece from the alpaca by the use of power clippers or blade shears.

Shrinkage:  The weight loss in alpaca fleece due to removal of foreign matter when the raw fleece is scoured.  Also refers to the estimated percentage of foreign matter in the fleece or the yield of "clean' or scoured alpaca.

Sliver:   A continuous strand or rope of parallel alpaca fibers approximately uniform in a cross-sectional area, and without twist.  A product of the carding and drawing process; carded slivers are blended prior to combing in the manufacture of worsted yarn.

Sorting:  Virtually all fleeces contain more than one grade of fiber.  Grading is the classification of fleece by fineness; sorting is the classification of fiber within one fleece.
Specialty Hair Fibers:  Fibers obtained from the hair of goats, rabbits, camels and the Lama family.

Staple:  This term refers to the length of a lock of shorn alpaca fiber.
Tender Breaks:  Weakness along a staple of fiber, usually caused by stress or lack of nutrition.

Top:   A continuous, untwisted strand of combed alpaca fibers from which the shorter fibers or noils have been removed by combing.

Twist:   The number of turns per inch in a thread of yarn.
Uniformity:  The even distribution of crimp, color and fineness over an entire fleece.

Yield:   The amount of clean alpaca fiber that is derived from raw alpaca fleece in the scouring process, usually expressed as a percentage.