It's HERE! The Yarn is back from the MILL!

Stormy Before Shearing

You may remember that back in late May we took 6 adorable, fluffy, fuzzy alpacas and paraded them through the humiliating process of having them sheared.  While they did spend an entire day hating my guts, moping about the pasture and looking a bit embarrassed to be seen, they did actually enjoy being half naked when the 100 degree days came.

Stormy After Shearing

From their nakedity, we managed 6 bags of Prime #1 fleece, suitable for fine yarns, 3 bags of #2 yarn, which is a bit more hairy and not quite as fine or high quality, but still wonderful.  And one bag of .... "well, it's not dirty, but it's not very nice".

The #1 and #2 bags were taken down to Kansas to the Shephed's Mill down in Phillipsburg.  Nestled on the edge of the rolling hills of north central Kansas, (YES, Kansas has hills.)  Sally and her intrepid crew turn bag after bag of fleece from a multitude of animals into amazing products.  She turned bag after bag of alpaca fuzz into wonderfully soft, 2-ply, sport weight yarn for us.  Each animal fleece, from #1 Prime Fleece, created 10-11 twisted hanks of yarn.

Two Days ago, it all arrived in two giant boxes!  Koselig Yarns are woderfully soft and naturally beautiful. I chose to keep it natural in color, no dyes or color enhancing.  This is both because it is gorgeous without, and most people don't want the added chemicals anyway.

Left to Right - Medium Brown/Mahogany, Lt Beige,
Medium Grey, True Black and Medium Fawn

Only Prime Fleece is used in our twisted yarn hanks.  This makes for a wonderfully soft yarn.

Our alpacas are treated like the little Princes they think they are.  They are fed a high quality balanced feed, specifically formulated for fleece producing alpacas with all the native minerals and nutrients they need.  They have free access to untreated Prairie pasture and our own hay. Our alpacas are sheared in the late Spring, usually around Mother’s Day before it gets too hot and they start playing in their pools.

Meet The Boys

Nova - Beige (think the color of natural cotton, almost white, but not quite)

William - Medium Brown/Mahogany 

Sterling - Medium Silver Grey (Grey with flecks of white)

Angus - True Black

Stormy - Medium Fawn (camel)

Kosmo- True Black

200 yards : 3oz                         HAND WASH: AIR DRY FLAT

2-Ply 100% Alpaca - Natural/Undyed

Twisted Hanks

#2 Yarn: SPORT weight (aka fine; baby; heavy fingering)

15 - 17 wpi

6 - 7 sts per inch (2.5 cm) / 24 - 28 sts per 4" (10 cm) 

Needle size: 3.25 - 3.75mm (3 - 5US)

Hook size: 3.5 - 4mm (E-4 - G-6)

For lace: 3.75 - 4.5mm (5 - 7US)

The #2 fleece I had boxed, which means I had her mix it all together and make it into a GIANT cone of alpaca yarn for me to weave with.  All mixed together, the fleece made a wonderful rose-grey mouse color!

Then I have a large bag of what the mill deems as waste.  This will NOT go to waste.  It is send back to the owner for two reasons; it is a great teaching tool to help us learn what to pick out before sending it to the mill, and second, sometimes we DO have other uses for it.  Here I will use it as breathable, insulating filler for blankets for the attic of the Top Bar Bee hive.

I also have a small bag of mixed roving that will be packaged and sold as filler for ballet dancers for inside their toe shoes.  This is sold under the label of OnPointe Alpacas!




All of these items will be on our Etsy.com account.  If you do a search for our Ranch shop on Etsy.com, do a search for the shop name with NO SPACES     GnomeGnomeOnTheRange