My lovely daughter-in-law, Julie, is shown here modeling some of the beautiful alpaca products that Sleeping Lady Alpacas has available for purchase on a very limited basis to local Anchorage-area shoppers. I offer gorgeous alpaca roving too. I do not process the roving myself, but I entrust it to only the best cottage industry fiber processers available. My favorite roving is a 10% or 20% bombyx silk and alpaca mixture. It is really beautiful and spins up into a yarn with a very pretty sheen. I offer pure alpaca roving, as well as the alpaca and bombyx silk blend.

I love to spin alpaca roving so most of my products are made from my own hand spun alpaca. However, I don't dye fiber so some of my products are made from purchased alpaca yarn that has been spun and dyed elsewhere in North America. These pretty turquoise hand knit socks are from a commercially spun and died yarn made from a mix of suri alpaca and silk. The suri alpaca is from a Pacific Northwest herd of suri alpacas. North American alpaca fiber just can't be matched for handle, luster, and natural color selection. The Alpaca Registry recognizes 22 natural colors produced by our North American alpaca herds.

There are two types of alpaca fiber; suri and huacaya. Suri alpaca fiber is a silky fiber with a wonderful luster. A suri alpaca has fiber that flows straight down in shiny locks. Suri fiber has very little crimp. Sleeping Lady Alpacas does not raise suri alpacas because of our long, cold winters. Huacaya alpaca fiber grows out from the alpaca to produce a "puff-ball" look. Haucaya fiber has varying degrees of crimp. Alpacas are usually shorn once a year and each animal will produce between 3 and 8 pounds of fiber. Alpaca fiber has more thermal properties than most other natural animal fibers, and no grease or lanolin, so very few people are allergic to it. Because there is no grease, and because the fiber is hollow, enthusiastic fly fishermen love to tie their own flies using alpaca fiber.

       Because we are in Anchorage, we do not shear our animals down to the skin each spring as many of the farms outside Alaska do. We don't have the threat of heat-stress in the summer, and by the middle of October we are experiencing below freezing nights with no hope of warming up until mid-May. This extended period of cold weather just doesn't lend itself to the shearing practices that other states enjoy. We like our animals to have a good cover of that wonderful alpaca fiber with its outstanding thermal properties to get them through our long, dark, cold winters. However, as you can see by my sale photos, the alpacas I board in the states get fully shorn yearly.