alpaca fiber – Dutch Hollow Acres

June 17, 2011June 17, 2011

Fiber Arts Friday – Shearing and Skirting

It was a long wait through some hot days but all of our alpacas are finally shorn! I mentioned a while back that I attended the shearing clinic up at Jay Ward’s place this spring and I got my chance to do some more hands on shearing on my own animals. I made the mistake of saving the last 3 animals for myself to shear. My legs were shaking from fatigue after wrestling all the alpacas before them as the header.

My lovely shearer Chris Hatch was so kind to coach me though and gave me great tips on how he runs his pattern and handles all the smaller cria and tui jobs. Thank you Chris and good luck in the alpaca shearing contest!

Of course after shearing you end up with bags upon bags of fiber everywhere! 12 animals time 3 bags each equals 36 bags stuffed with fluffy fiber. So, I’ve been working my way through all the bags skirting them on my new skirting table. Picking out VM as well as changes in color, guard hair, and consistency. Which means I’ve created even more bags of fiber! (FYI The red on the cria’s nose is loose minerals, she looks like Rudolf though)

The good news? Those folks that participated in our Raw Alpaca Fiber CSA… your fleeces have been skirted, packaged and shipped out already! You should get them soon! For those of you still wishing to take part in our CSA we do have full and half shares for Spinners and Yarn left! Check out our Etsy Store for details.

Oh yeah, last but not least progress has once again been made on the alpaca fan shawl. I’m on pattern row 29 of 30! I was worried that 30 pattern rows would not stretch out enough for my wingspan but I think I might be ok. We’ll see. Worst case I might add 2 more pattern rows.

So what have you Fiber Arts Friday folks been up to?

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May 25, 2011June 1, 2011

2011 Alpaca Fiber CSA Shares

Did you know that Dutch Hollow Acres started the Alpaca Fiber CSA movement? We have been offering CSA shares of our annual shearing for over 3 years now.

CSA or Community Supported Agriculture is often associated with farmers markets and food harvests but it also applies to natural fibers. Fiber farmers like Dutch Hollow Acres spend all year caring for and selectively breeding our fiber animals in anticipation of our annual shearing.

Last year we offered only raw fiber CSA shares which sold out quickly. This year with the addition of more animals to our heard we will be expanding our CSA shares to roving/batting and hand spun yarns.

The pricing is as follows

$75 – Raw– Alpaca prime blanket fleece (Beige or White only) This is a 1 time share and will be shipped out after the animals are sheared. The fleece will be skirted before shipping.

$125/$63 – Spinners – Quarterly (4x a year) shipments of alpaca or alpaca blended fiber ready to be spun. Colors and blends will change with each shipment throughout the year.
Full Share = 2lbs
Half Share = 1lbs

$150/$75 – Yarn – Quarterly (4x a year) shipments of alpaca or alpaca blended yarns handspun by me. Colors and blends will change with each shipment throughout the year.
Full Share = 2lbs
Half Share = 1lbs

Double check the title of the listing before placing your order.

Etsy
DutchHollowAcres

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011

Fiber Arts Friday: A bit of everything

Welcome back to Fiber Arts Friday!

I’ve had a case of Fiber ADD again this week. I think heading up to Jay NY for the shearing seminar got me motivated to play with everything alpaca again.

If you frequent my Fiber Wordless Wednesday you’ve seen my shearing job so I won’t bore you with that again. If you haven’t seen it check it out or think about participating next week, share anything fiber animal related from sheep to rabbits and everything in between.

With my hands on all that alpaca fiber at shearing made me want to spin so I got to work on this bobbin. I haven’t spun in a while and I’m amazed how I’m doing so poorly and getting lumps when I’m trying not to get them. Ugh.

My green shawl has stalled. I got 2 more pattern rows done since you last seen it but at least that was enough to get me onto my last skein! I’m almost there.

Lastly… Here’s the start of the heather gray alpaca shawl using the same pattern as the green shawl. See why I decided to sell the green one and keep this one?

Don’t forget to check back for Fiber Market Monday’s! Got anything to do with fiber? Post it! Etsy, OpenHerd, AlpacaNation, personal websites etc are fair game. This is a shopping market for fiber lovers of all types!

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March 18, 2011March 18, 2011

Fiber Arts Friday: Modern Nature Jewelry

Welcome back to the wonderful world of Fiber Arts Friday!

This week I’d like to take the time to introduce you to my sister-in-law Kathleen Lang Klik, who is a very talented photographer and jewelry designer. You might remember me mentioning her a while back in a post about felting beads with alpaca. Well, as it turns out Kathy took her new found knowledge of bead felting and turned it into a beautiful work of jewelry art. The necklace she created from those alpaca beads was recently featured in the magazine Bead Trends.

Of course I’m very proud that she chose to entitle the piece “Dutch Hollow” in honor of the alpacas who supplied the fiber for her beads. Kathleen has such a great eye for the art of jewelry making and I really enjoyed the textures, shapes and sizes she chose for this piece.

I hope her work and the attention it is getting inspires more artists to look to alpaca fiber beyond its traditional uses.

Fiber Arts Friday Exclusive! If you’d like to see more of Kathleen’s work, she has been gracious enough to offer FAF readers a 10% discount at her Etsy Store!