Hook and Needles: Knitting and Crochet Blog (cool stuff, techniques, and things I find)

Alpacas at Penny Lee Alpacas

Today, a bunch of us fibre enthusiasts went on an tour of some of the local alpaca farms in our area (Manitoba, Canada). It was organized by my LYS. We went to 4 farms:

1. Aurora Alpacas (Luoise and Kurt Dorward) in St. Norbert
2. Penny Lee Alpacas (Penny and Rick Gogush) in Cartier
3. Legacy Fibre Works (Michelle Rossnagel and Jackie Campbell) in Stony Mountain
4. Serenity Alpacas (Angela Guenther) in St. Andrews

Male at Aurora Alpacas

It was a lot of fun. I had no idea there were so many people involved in Manitoba in this industry.

The animals are so beautiful, soft, and cute. The farmers were just so gracious to let us touch them, and answered all our questions (“No, you can’t ride the alpacas”).

I was surprised to see how docile they were. Their hair is super dense, and sooooo soft. They also have the most amazing colors. In one farm they had a table with yarns made from their alpacas, and you could tell by the color from which animal each one came.

Alpaca yarn at Aurora Alpacas

The gray yarn in the picture above  (you can barely see it at the top of the picture) is from the male in the second picture.

It really makes you appreciate more the yarn, once you get to know the people and animals that are involved in this fascinating process. I wonder if Walmart will ever organize an Acrylic oil platform tour

Male at Serenity Alpacas

If you are interested, I posted many more pictures in my Flickr account. Also, if you’d like to know more about this industry, visit the Manitoba Alpaca Club.