Alpaca Fibre
Considered a luxury product alpaca is comparable to cashmere and fine merino wool. It’s hypo-allergenic, incredibly warm and wonderfully soft. It is also super sustainable and we grow it in abundance here at Hideaway Wood Farm.
We have 32 alpacas producing a fleece for us yearly.
We have a mix of natural colours, baby alpaca fleeces and some sought after grey and patchy fleeces.
The fleece varies in its quality from animal to animal in terms of its fineness and density and the fleece itself has differing quality aspects depending on where it was shorn from.
The 'blanket', which comes from the alpaca's back is considered the highest grade part of the fleece and can be used for spinning and made into a high quality yarn.
The 'seconds', which come from the neck, belly and legs can be used for needle felting, stuffing duvets, pillows and teddies, bird nesting material, hanging baskets, slug repellent, mulching and more.
Crafts
As a crafter you may have heard that alpaca fleece is hard to work with but we use it and find it works beautifully whether wet felting, felting, spinning or knitting/crocheting with the finished yarn.
Alpaca fibre is different to sheep wool so if you’re used to working with sheep it will be an adjustment but we’re here to help.
If you would like to learn how to prepare a fleece, drop spindle spin, felt or wet felt please do get in touch and we can organise a session for you either 1:1 or as a group.
We do sell our raw roughly skirted fleeces as well as skirted, carded bags of fleece ready for use in felting or spinning. We can also produce these to order if you have a particular colour in mind.
We also sell handspun yarn and rolags for spinning.
Our yarn output is very slow as we do it all completely by hand but if you’re seeking a particular colour please do get in touch and we can make you something bespoke.
GARDEN
We have an abundance of alpaca seconds ready for use in the garden.
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You can use it to line hanging baskets as it is incredibly water resistant.
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Birds love it for their nests - we sell bird nesting material dispensers and refill bags
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It can be used as a natural slug repellent due to its water repellent qualities the slugs won’t go near it
