Spotlight on Schumann

The alpaca I'd like to introduce you to today is Schumann. When we visited Jurustalle Alpacas we intended to select just one alpaca for our Follow-a-Fleece program. In discussion with Jurustalle alpacas before we went out into the paddock we got to see Schumann's fleece from last year and it was just gorgeous. We wanted it for ourselves! Between his fleece and a name like Schumann (to go with our musical inclination) we just knew Schumann had to be in the program. But then we met Gautier and we were torn. There was just something about Gautier that we couldn't leave him out! Then Schumann wandered over and he was just so classy to match his name and beautiful fleece. What to do!?! To that point we had only accepted one alpaca from each stud but we loved both! What to do??? We just had to include both! There was no other option! Check out our Follow-a-Fleece here if you are interested in finding out more about Schumann...

program

In other news, I was very relieved to have my father and step-brother visiting to help me remove this very cute but unwelcome visitor from the house!

Veggie patch has been kind to us

Despite the neglect this year, our veggie patch and small only 4 years old orchard is being very kind to us! We have had plenty of snow peas and zucchinis. 5 trees have given us a huge amount of apples, two shopping bags picked from one tree today! About half shown in the picture. 

Some of the apples have been huge! I couldn't quite find the right way to show their size, even this picture with the tea cup doesn't quite show it. The apple is bigger in every dimension!

Rather tasty too...

Follow-a-Fleece Spotlight on Captain Jack

Introducing… Captain Jack!
Captain Jack is the sweetie from Kyona Alpacas. Kylie and Fiona from Kyona Alpacas have a love for alpacas and produce the most wonderful felted items from their fleece! I've been lucky enough to go to two of their felting workshops, learn to felt and felting hats. We had such a great day learning from two such talented ladies! They are always at the Millthorpe Markets so drop by on the 22nd of March 2015 if you are in the area and say hello and see what they have handcrafted. Captain Jack is one of their young male alpacas that they are keen to share, if you'd like to follow his fleece, visit our kickstarter page.


In breaking news… Just a Gigolo is the first of our Follow-a-Fleece candidates to sell out! Don't miss out on Captain Jack…

Follow-a-Fleece Spotlight on Phantom

Phantom is the beloved stud male from Kienella Alpacas. You can just tell that this alpaca has character! His fleece is a natural black, alpacas are one of the few fibres that can be said to really be a true black. Check out their facebook page to find out more about Kienella Alpacas and Phantom in particular, there may be an extra photo or two there of him if you want to know more! They love their alpacas and like us their alpacas are beloved pets. All breeders love their alpacas and have a few that are considered pets however it is the small breeders that really have a relationship with each and every one of their alpacas. This is demonstrated very clearly as Scotty puts together a calendar each year of alpacas in Christmas hats. We were very fortunate this year to be gifted one! I'm sure you can imagine this alpaca in a Christmas hat! Perhaps Scotty might share some of his alpacas in hats photos if you are one of the lucky ones who decide to follow Phantom's fleece?

UPDATE!
Kienella Alpacas very kindly agreed to release a few photos of Phantom in hats that featured in their calendar! Isn't he just gorgeous!?!

 

Follow-a-Fleece Spotlight on Gabriel (Snoop)

A hand knitted jumper or vest is always something made with so much love that you can feel it when you wear the item of clothing. From my experience of having yarn made from my alpacas, I have found that there is something extra special about the clothing that I have knitted for my children with our very own yarn. Knitting with yarn that you know where it came from and something about the animal and its life really is something special.

Not everyone has the space to have alpacas like we do, so part of our vision for Adagio Alpaca Mills is to be able to connect the end uses of the knitting yarn with the grows of the fleece. This is where the concept of Follow-a-Fleece came from. 

If you love the idea of knowing more about the animal that grew the fleece for the yarn and the people who cared for that animal check out our Follow-a-Fleece first run! It is one of the rewards on offer in our kickstarter campaign. If it is popular we hope to run a similar program in future years through our own online store when it is up and running. 

There are 10 alpacas in our Follow-a-Fleece first run. We would like to show you Gabriel (Snoop) today. Gabriel lives at Signature Alpacas in the Central West of NSW, Australia. She is currently very pregnant and if you are lucky enough to sign up to her Follow-a-Fleece you will get to see pictures of her cria (baby alpaca) when its born and you'll just have to sign up to find out why her nickname is Snoop!

A very big thank you to Retromummy who has mentioned our new business on her blog! 

Adagio Alpaca Mills

There haven't been many posts here on my blog over the past few months, however it was for very good reason. Not only was my second son, Xavier, born 6 months ago but we have been working on a new business venture! New baby, new business, all at once, CRAZY!

As you can tell on this blog we love our alpacas and being able to make stuff from their fleece, we have decided to take that to the next level! For the past 2 years we have been working on a concept of Adagio Alpaca Mills and it is finally taking shape. It took a surprisingly long time to develop the business case and obtain funding but we did it and placed the orders on the milling equipment from Italy just before Xavie was born. Check out our website here.

Our milling equipment has now been manufactured and is about to be shipped! We should be operational in about 2-3 months time!

Whilst our bank has been awesome in funding us, there are a few small but critical things they were unable to fund such as our washing and drying facility. This will consist of sinks, a hydro extractor, drying racks and hopefully also an ultrasonic bath. So we have launched the adagio alpaca mills kickstarter campaign 2015. 

Be the first to have some of our yarn or check out our alpaca experiences!

Alpacas lost... And home!

Oh-oh... I got home to find the alpacas in the garden! Luckily they followed me home to their paddock like the pied piper. I was surprised as our lawn is much nicer than their paddock!

 

Happy new year!

Happy new year! It's been a long time between posts here as the end of 2014 has been crazy in a good way! Our baby is now 3.5 months old and still likes to feed multiple times overnight, but that's ok as my toddler has already taught me that sleep is optional!

2015 is going to be an exciting year for us workwise as well, we have decided to start a business processing alpaca fibre. It's called adagio alpaca mills and we will be able to produce yarn and rovings/slivers as well as other items. We will process for others as well as have products of our own. The equipment has been purchased and is being manufactured. It is expected to be operational May 2015. There will be more information here and on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/adagioalpacamills as we get closer. So exciting!

Our little farm is going well too with a surprising amount of feed for this time of year. The steers are almost lost in the grass on these photos! The daisies are so pretty in the garden.

I don't post photos of my children all that often but I just had to share this one!

Spring has begun

Although we briefly returned to winter weather yesterday with hail that turned everything white for a while, spring really has begun here. The weather has been warming up and was just stunning today. The daffodils are flowering and fruit trees are full of buds. I took a leisurely wander around the farm this afternoon (nearly unheard of activity for me but the small boy was otherwise occupied so I took the chance whilst I could) and took a few photos whilst I was at it.

Another baby quilt finished!

Between growing baby 2, looking after our toddler whilst still working part time there hasn't been much time or energy for craft around here! However I am now officially on parental leave so have managed to summon some energy to finish a baby quilt that I started ages ago! The family is coming to stay with us for a few days next week so just in time! I even managed to start cutting out the fabric for our baby's quilt. Hope I finished it before baby arrives!

The family who is coming to visit has two older boys as well as the baby so it will be rally nice for my toddler to have some small boys about his age to play with for a few days and hopefully give him some frame of reference when we keep talking about him having a baby brother!!!!