YEPEE!! MY FINISHED HAT!!!

My instructor is the same person who sold me my three wonderful boys! They own 90 alpacas, 10 llamas, assorted horses and multiple dogs. She has a wonderful studio!
She sent the sheared alpaca to the mill,, had it composed into wool roving. This particular roving was black/white/brown alpaca. The hat began as 8 layers of roving I placed in alternate directions. I added some water, soap, scrubbing,, placed on the hat form to dry and IT ACTUALLY BECAME A REAL HAT!!!!!!!

Instructors felted hat

This is my instructors felted hat... She has white alpacas,, sent the fiber to the mill ,, processed and dyed.. She makes/sells these hats in Lexington.

Private Reserve

This cutie is "Private Reserve". He is a gelded 3 yr old Huacaya male. Private Reserve is the protector of the three. He leads the other alpacas to eat... nips at the others when he doesn't like what they are doing. His date of birth 2/10/2007. "Privie" is his nickname. Privie has been to England and now back home in good ole Kentucky. And by the way, in this photo,,, that is not an alpaca head sticking out the behind of Private Reserve. Privie moved just as the photo was taken and the other animal was just in the right spot at the right time! I didn't even notice this until later.

Alpaca Info /Facts

This has been a long learning process for me.... Thought you would enjoy some of the "fun facts"!
member of the South American Camelid family
-Originated from the Andes Mountains which run thru Peru, Chile, Argentina
-First arrival of Alpacas into USA was in 1988
-Average lifespan is 15 to 20 years.
-Gestation is usually 11 months (but the babies-known as cria-are so cute!!)
Two types of Alpacas-
Huacaya (pronounced wahcaya) Has a dense fiber that grows perpendicular to the body.
Suri- has a more lustrous fiber that appears as dreadlocks. Suri’s account for 5% of the alpaca population.
-There are 24 distinct colors of alpacas,, from white, fawn, black, brown.
-In ancient Incan times, alpaca fiber was used to make clothes for the royalty and was known as “The Fiber of the Gods”.
It is as soft as cashmere, yet lighter in weight, stronger, and warmer than wool.
Alpaca fiber contains no lanolin, therefore hypoallergenic
Alpaca fiber is naturally fire retardant.
It is in high demand from hand spinners, knitters, and fiber artists for both the raw fleece and yarns.

Woodford's Journey

A better photo of Woody. As you can see,, he is fond of the camera!

Shearing Day!

This is Big Brown on shearing day in April 2010. A team of professional Alpaca Shearers travel across the US in the Spring. This is not as bad as it may look. The animals are lightly restrained to prevent them from breaking a leg or injuring themselves (or the folks helping out). Once they are placed in this position on the mat,,, these guys have the entire fleece sheared off in about 5 minutes,, without harm to the animal. Of course,, the animals all receive treats after loosing 10 lbs of hair! I know how good I feel after a haircut!!! :)

Woodford's Journey-the baby of the bunch

This cutie is Woodford's Journey... He is the "youngin" of the three. Date of birth is 2/21/2009,, so almost 1 1/2 yrs. I call him "Woody" for short. He is such a dark shade of black that you sometimes you can't even see his eyes. Woodford is not yet gelded....I guess he'll be making that trip to the Vet in Shelbyville or Henry County to get that completed!!

Big Brown

This is "Big Brown". He was born on 5/3/08 (the same day his namesake won the Kentucky Derby. He is also a Huacaya alpaca. Big Brown is very inquisitive. He is always the first one to check out new things. He has the most beautiful big brown eyes!! This picture was taken at his home farm the day before he was sheared in April 2010.