National Alpaca Farm Days 2009

Last weekend was “National Alpaca Farm Days”. Both Saturday and Sunday we held an Open House for visitors to come and meet the alpacas. We had alpaca products available for sale. The weather was super hot and humid so we only sold a few skeins of yarn, but our new Paca Poo Tea was a big success! This little darling (above) visited us from a nearby neighborhood. She finally found what she wanted. A precious little alpaca teddy bear.

Alpaca Teddy Bears are SO soft!

Some people came from far away to see the alpacas. These ladies pictured below came all the way from New Orleans. This was their third time to visit our farm. It’s wonderful to have such dedicated “fans” of the alpacas!

These visitors drove over three hours to see alpacas!

I was even able to meet some Twitter friends who came over. What a great opportunity for a Tweet-up. Thanks to @Alli_Flowers for the photo!

Twitter Buddies meet to tweet in person.

Left to right: Adorable children of @subrbanoblivion, @subrbanoblivion, @AlpacaFarmgirl, Lucinda alpaca, @Dmovelle, and @Alli_Flowers.

What a great weekend! Looking forward to our next Open House during the Holidays. Sign up (top right corner) to be on our mailing list if you want to hear about upcoming events.

September 28th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca teddy bears, alpaca yarn, Alpacas, National Alpaca Farm Day, National Alpaca Farm Days, Open House | Category: Alpacas, Business Matters, Events, Farm Business | Comments (3)

September 26th & 27th are National Alpaca Farm Days. This event happens all over the country as alpaca farms open their doors to visitors. There is an official National Farm Day page on the AOBA (Alpaca Owners & Breeders Association) website. There you can find a map that will show you the farms near you that will be participating. Below you will find another map of farms that will be open. This map was put together by Alpaca Social, an online social network of alpaca breeders.

Our farm, Fairhope Alpacas, in Fairhope, Alabama will be open both days from 10am-3pm. On Saturday we will have spinning demonstrations all day, and on Sunday you can join us for a Q&A session on raising alpacas from 3-4pm. You will get to see our cria pronking in the fields, and we will have alpaca fiber, yarn, and products available for purchase. The event is FREE so bring the family and your extended family. Please spread the word. Alpacas are glorious creatures, and there are still so many people who have never seen one! So tell your friends, and mark your calendars for this special event.

September 8th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca farms, alpaca info, Alpaca Social, Alpacas, AOBA, finding alpaca farms, how to find alpaca farms, National Alpaca Farm Days | Category: Alpacas, Events, Farm Business | Comments (5)

Alpaca Fiber is made into luxurious garments. Watch as sumptuous alpaca products are strutted down the runway at the 2nd Annual World Conference and Fashion Show. See more fashions in our Slideshow.

July 2nd, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, Alpacas, AOBA National Conference, fashion, fashion show, fiber, slideshow, World Alpaca Conference | Category: Alpacas, Events, Fiber Arts, Girl Stuff, World Conference | Comments (4)

A few weeks ago we had a Beginning Spinning Class at our farm. Instructor Sherry Watkins came from Tennessee to teach us how to spin alpaca fiber into yarn.

Sherry brought Schacht Spinning Wheels, both the Matchless and the adorable Ladybug (which has a tiny ladybug on it – in a different place on each wheel) for us to try out.

Sherry also showed everyone how to skirt a fleece. (Skirting is what you do to a fleece to prepare it for processing. It involves removing vegetable matter and debris, and taking out parts that don’t match the rest of the fleece based on the length of fiber, color, and handle.)

My friend Lori, who blogs at Just Pure Lovely, was a natural. She brought her own wheel that she recently purchased and looked as though she was BORN TO SPIN! If she were not so lovely and sweet, I would have been jealous. (ok, maybe I was a little)

The majority of students in the class really took to spinning and picked it up during the class. Sherry bragged that we did a really good job and got further than most classes.

My friend Maxine and I still needed some help. I kept making the same error every time. Maxine (right) is a master knitter. I really have her to thank for awakening me to the fiber side of my alpaca life. (She developed our alpaca scarf that looks like an alpaca and the knitting kits to make them. That really got me rolling in the fiber-y direction.) Maxine and I found spinning to be a challenge.

By the end of the day, we had created yarn. Some of the ladies had really incredible looking yarn! I was impressed.

Anne did a super job and created a beautiful yarn.

Lori’s yarn was gorgeous! She is a natural. I look forward to bartering alpaca fleece for her amazing photography skills again soon.

Stephanie and RoseAnne also made nice yarn and really got the hang of it. Everyone had a good time at the Spinning Class. Sherry was a great teacher and gave us lots of good information along the way. Most of the students left the class ready to go spin more. I believe that most of them have gotten wheels to keep spinning.

We have alpaca fiber available for spinning in a variety of colors. Contact me for more information at katy (at) alpacafarmgirl.com.

June 18th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, Beginning Spinning, class, fiber, fleece, skirting, spinning | Category: Alpacas, Events, Fiber Arts | Comments (2)

From now through Sunday I will be blogging live from the World Alpaca Conference. I will post some general interest items here. For people who want the nitty gritty alpaca info, you will find those posts on our Farm Business page.

June 4th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, Alpacas, alpacas in Ohio, blogging, National Alpaca Show, World Alpaca Conference | Category: Alpacas, Events, World Conference | Comments (1)

Colt McCoy

This week I’m gearing up for the National Alpaca Conference and Show. This year AOBA (Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association) is hosting the Second Annual World Alpaca Conference in Cleveland, Ohio June 3-7. It is to be held at the I-X Center and will include an International Fleece Show, National Halter Show, Fiber Arts Competition, Vendors, Fashion Show, the Annual AOBA Auction, and much more. It’s like Disney World for Alpacas Lovers!

Yours truly will be attending this fabulous event where I’ll be blogging & Tweeting. My usual Twitter name is @AlpacaFarmgirl. For this event I will be switching over to @AlpacasLive. If you would like to follow along with what’s happening at the Conference, just keep visiting this site and follow on Twitter for live updates and TwitPics. They say there is wireless internet access throughout the venue, and it is my intention to do interactive LIVE blogging during the Auction. If you have questions you should be able to login and ask me. I will do my best to post prices as we go.

Now – to skirt my fleeces to go to the fleece show and halter train Colt McCoy to get him ready. Yes, I am that much of a procrastinator! Sponsorships still available for Blog Coverage of next week’s events. Advertisers will receive excellent coverage as this event will have a full year’s “shelf life”. Contact me at katy (at ) alpacafarmgirl.com for more information.

May 29th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, Alpaca Fashion Show, alpaca info, Alpaca Lovers, Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association, Alpacas, AOBA Auction, AOBA Halter Show, Colt McCoy, Fiber Arts Competition, International Fleece Show, IX Center, Ohio, Second Annual World Alpaca Conference, Twitter, World Alpaca Conference | Category: Alpacas, Events, Farm Business, World Conference | Comments (1)

This Friday I will be getting a crash course in the Fiber Arts! My guest this weekend is Sheri Watkins from Loudon, TN. Sheri and her husband, Bill, own and operate Frostglen Alpacas. They have been alpaca breeders for 20 years!

Sheri is teaching a Beginning Spinning class here at our farm, Fairhope Alpacas, tomorrow. I am so excited to learn to spin. Today she plans to give me tips on dyeing, felting, and more. Sheri is also going to walk me through washing the fleeces. At this point, having over 100 fleeces to wash seems to be an insurmountable obstacle, but she’s going to show me how to do several at a time outdoors. The kids and I should be able to knock it out the first month of summer. (I realize I can send them out to be washed, but that adds to the cost with the washing AND shipping – I’m going to weigh my options at this point.) And in this economy, I am reminded every day to do more for myself and rely less on paying others to do things. (I’d love to have 6 employees, but that will have to wait for the economic upturn!)

It is my intention to blog everything I can and even take some video this weekend. So check back to see all the fiber trouble we get into!

Please tell at least one fiber friend and ask them to participate in Fiber Arts Friday! And be sure to mention Fiber Arts Friday in your blog posts and link to it. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got going on this week on your blogs!

Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival!

To participate:

1. Add the permalink to a specific blog post that features something Fiber Art related, rather than your general blog address and not your Etsy store. (Please DO put a link in your blog post that takes us to your store though.)
2. Link back to Fiber Arts Friday from your post so that your readers can come and see everyone else’s projects! Use the button or a text link to http://www.alpacafarmgirl.com.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and leave comments! That’s what helps us all connect!
4. Double-check to make sure your link works and goes to the right page so it doesn’t get deleted.

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

May 22nd, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, Beginning Spinning, Blog Carnival, Dyeing, Fairhope Alpacas, felting, Fiber Arts Friday, Frostglen Alpacas, Sheri Watkins, spinning, spinning alpaca, washing alpaca fleece | Category: Alpacas, Events, Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday, Lifestyle, New Additions, Tending the Hearth, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (4)

WRR Amber

It was incredibly lame for me not to take a single photograph yesterday for the blog. (Above is the requisite alpaca shot of Amber thrown in for my beloved readers.)

Several times I thought of calling the house and having someone bring my camera to me. But my husband was sick and he had already taken the kids to the cold, windy soccer game (When they got there, no game ever materialized because the other team never showed up.) It just never seemed like it would be a good time to call…

Anyway, we had a very nice Alpacas 101 class. Visitors came from as far away as Miami and South Carolina came to learn more about breeding alpacas. The interest in alpacas is actually very good right now. 2009 is a great time to be getting into the alpaca business.  (See yesterday’s post for more on that.) Several times we thought Honeybelle was going to deliver her cria during the class. False Alarm. No cria. Not even today.

This guy is who we have to thank for introducing Alpaca to the World!

For the past few years, I have had our class lunches catered. This time I prepared a light pasta salad, fruit salad, and a lemonade cake. We also had a delicious chicken salad with croissants. We added an amazing article, Sir Titus Salt and the Golden Fleece, written by Adrian Stewart, to the curriculum. This piece tells the story of how this British gentlemen discovered alpaca fleece and built a textile empire around it in England. He singlehandedly brought alpaca fiber out of the Antiplano in South America and INTO the rest of the world. Without him, we might still not know much about the alpacas or their fiber. It was great to be able to share this story with our attendees.

Victorian dress made from alpaca

Pages from the article on Sir Titus Salt

I love history. Being able to share the alpaca’s history is important to me. It colors how we view our work with alpacas today and for the future.

We cover lots of topics in Alpacas 101. Leave a comment and tell me what would be the topic YOU would want to hear about most?

April 19th, 2009 | Tags: Alpacas, Alpacas 101, Alpacas 101 class, breeding alpacas, Honeybelle, Sir Titus Salt, victorian alpaca dress | Category: Alpacas, Events, Farm Business, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (2)

This week our featured Fiber Artist is Karen Gielen of Cre8tive KJ’s Corner. Karen is also an Alpaca Breeder in Minnesota! This week she has written this amazing tutorial on how to make these lovely felted journals. Her instructions take you step by step through the process, complete with lots of pictures. What a great gift idea. I love this project. Thanks KJ for sharing it with us.

KJ is a momma of 6. She knits (both needle and loom), crochets, felts, spins, dyes, does hairpin lace and daisy loom crochet. You name it, she’s done it! How incredible is it that she has takes the time to be creative and share it with us? Please visit her blog and leave her a comment. She’s shearing her alpacas tomorrow! (Maybe she’ll post pics.)

Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival!

To participate:

1. Add the permalink to a specific blog post that features something Fiber Art related, rather than your general blog address and not your Etsy store. (Please DO put a link in your blog post that takes us to your store though.)
2. Link back to Fiber Arts Friday from your post so that your readers can come and see everyone else’s projects! Use the button or a text link to http://www.alpacafarmgirl.com.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and leave comments! That’s what helps us all connect!
4. Double-check to make sure your link works and goes to the right page so it doesn’t get deleted.

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

April 16th, 2009 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca breeder, Cre8tive KJ's Corner, felted journals, felting, handmade | Category: Events, Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday, Lifestyle, New Additions | Comments (8)