The Product

What is the purpose of raising alpacas? Well, there is selling the babies, and we do want to do that. We will run out of room otherwise.

But another very important part of the industry is the fiber the alpacas produce. I taught myself to knit, and I just starting spinning the fiber. My first project is a sweater for myself. I may have taken on a big undertaking in that I've never knit a sweater before (only tried hats and mittens and scarfs). And this is my first time spinning the yarn. But I decided I might as well just dive in.

So far I have the back of the sweater done:



And I started on one of the sides (it's a cardigan so it will have two sides for the front):


In my basement I have a "fiber room":


This is where I have a sewing machine (thank you grandma ;) ), and bags of fiber from the animals. These bags are just the prime fiber from this year, I have a lot more bags of fiber from previous years:


I should move my skirting table in there, so all the fiber stuff is in one location. My spinning wheel is in the living room so that I can grab it when I sit down to watch tv.

I need to set aside some time to finish this sweater. Then onto things I can sell :)