Recently I met Tim Toshack from Alpaca Ultimate near Yass and he had with him a collection of yarns from their range, produced with their own fibre. He told me how he and Graham Lugg, alpaca breeders in the region since 2003, had taken over the Alpaca Ultimate label and business from Penny Pittard and Merilyn Mathews in 2014. It was inspiring to handle the yarns and to know that I’d be able to source more so close to home.
We visited the farm, fed the alpacas and checked out the fleeces. Inside we checked out the balls and cones of yarn and Penny and I started chatting to Graham and Tim about doing some designs using some of the yarns. The first design was the Pony Tail Friendly hat and mittens pictured above. It was featured in Issue #38 of Yarn Magazine which came out in March this year. The Alpaca Ultimate website [http://www.alpacaultimate.com.au/] has details of the yarns available and some other designs. In time this page will feature some of Penny and my patterns as well.
And recently a group of us from the Wednesday Knitters at QEII here in Canberra had a lovely morning at the farm. Again the animals, the fleeces and the spun yarns were of interest and again there was a fair amount of yarn collected for various projects.
It’s show time round these parts at the moment and Tim was telling us that they’d won some prizes at the Wodonga Show, had a good time at the Canberra Show and are looking forward to the Goulburn Show in the near future.