Guest Blogger Week 20 Wonder Why Alpaca Farm

I would like to say a huge welcome

to Andrea

 from Wonder Why Alpaca Farm

Do you Wonder Why?

Did the chicken come before the egg?  This question has been asked forever so I have a better twist on it...Did the farm come before the fiber?  In my case, yes!  Before I purchased my first Alpaca in 2008, the only Fiber Arts activity I attempted was crochet, sewing and cross-stitch of which I was awful at the first two.  My dear grandmother tried to teach me as a teenager but I never had the motivation and when you have an amazing quilter and seamstress as a grandmother you can have pretty much whatever you want sewn for you done without having to learn at least that is how I saw it.  Same with crochet, to this day I have a plethora of afghans around my house that either my grandmother or sister made for me.  If they didn't have time to make what I wanted, then I'd visit a craft show and buy it.

The day I met Kaboom, a Suri Alpaca, my life changed.  I fell in love with his face, his personality and his fiber.  I wanted something made out of him.  I didn't know what but I knew I wanted it.  I bought him and my first few Alpacas in late Autumn so I would have a few months before my first shearing season.  It was about then that I met some local knitters and had a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn thrust at me.  "You are now a knitter!"  By golly, I was.  Of course, I didn't see them for a few weeks so I didn't become a "purler" right away.  During the next few months I learned the basics of knitting then one day I saw a beautiful drop spindle made by a local artist and I won it at a fundraiser.  "Guess what! You are now a spinner!"  By golly, I became one.

After shearing I had all of my fiber sent to a mill for processing.  I was told by the mill that I should practice on wool before I started to spin with my Alpaca because I  wouldn't want to waste my Alpaca with beginning spinning.  Whatever!  I grabbed that first bump of roving, created from Kaboom, and started to spin.  Yes, I can look at that yarn now and know that my spinning wasn't the best and I had over-spun the yarn so it felt a bit like rope but I spun it from MY Alpaca.  I then knitted a staggered-ribbed scarf out of that yarn and made a scarf long enough for a men's dress coat which I would give to my dad.  I had taken that fleece from Pasture to Product.  I was a real fiber producing farm.

I look back on what I learned in that first year of my farm and what I have learned since then. Fiber Arts is a true addiction and owning the fiber producing animals just feeds the habit.  Would I have learned to knit, spin, weave, felt, dye and even crochet (yes, I have actually learned) without that herd of Alpacas? Maybe but most likely not.  This egg needed the chicken to get the yarn ball rolling.

Etsy Shop of Wonder:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/WonderWhyAlpacaFarm

Please check out my MAIN WEBSITE and learn about the WONDER of Alpacas!  http://wonderwhyalpacafarm.com/

Andrea Morrison aka WonderWhyGal
Wonder Why Alpaca Farm, LLC
www.wonderwhyalpacafarm.com

Wisdom Begins In Wonder

Want to see the quirky side of Fiber Arts?

Check out my blog:  www.wonderwhyalpacafarm.blogspot.com

Wow Thank you ever so much Andrea!

I don't know about you but

I would love my own Alpaca.

Please check out Andrea's sites!

They are well worth following!