I am going to try to post for a few days on the many different things I learned while at the recent Alpaca Fiber Symposium at Gaston College in North Carolina.

FIRST        The Alpaca Blanket Project  -  Did you know that Pendleton Woolen Mills is now making 100% American alpaca blankets?  Fantastic!

Peter Lundberg told us of his adventure  to secure Pendleton to make these blankets – a project that began in 2003. 

The project started with an invitation to American alpaca breeders to donate their unused fiber to the project along with the ability to purchase the finished blankets along the way.  In this ‘inventory phase’ fiber is sorted into 5 grades of a 3 micron range and 7 color groups.  1,000 lbs of fiber must be collected first before a run of blankets can be made.

At first the mill didn’t know if they would need to mix some sheeps wool as a binding agent for the slicker alpaca fiber and at the end of 2008 the good news was received that they had developed a way to run 100% alpaca fiber with enough tensile strength to produce a quality blanket.  Whoo hooo.

The Alpaca Blanket Project is now about halfway through it’s inventory phase for 2009 and they are hoping their goal will be reached late in the year and more blankets can be made. 

Their next goal is to start paying for fiber some time in 2010.

A few things I learned from Peter are:  we must eliminate second cuts when we have our animals sheared.  Think about it – this is our end product.  We can’t let a shearer just come in and botch a shear job because he is trying to reach a quota that day.  We must insist on perfection when shearing our alpacas – it’s business and bottom line.

Another thing is we must have cleaner fiber.  The more ways we can think of to keep VM out of these beautiful fleeces, the better off we’ll be.  There will be less cost in scouring, cleaning – whatever you want to call it. 

There is no fee to join the Alpaca Blanket Project.  The goal is to have an extraordinary product to go to the masses and retail at high end stores.  One day we will see 100% USA alpaca in our retail stores – how exciting!

One final thing I took away from Peter’s talk was tumbling ruins alpaca fiber – don’t do it.