Alpaca Products – The Cottage Industry

By Lesley Rawlins – Wellground Alpaca Stud

So many alpaca owners ask us the question “What can I do with my alpaca fleece?” The answer is not that hard to find. There are many fantastic things you can do with such a lovely natural product. The worst thing you can do is leave it in a bag to gather dust. The fact that so much can be done with alpaca fibre, means that breeders can go in a variety of directions. At Wellground, we have chosen our own route, the Cottage Industry. Creating hand knitted individual ladies fashions.

At Wellground Alpaca Stud we shear our own alpacas, in doing so we combine the process of shearing and grading the fleece into one operation. We are very careful to ensure only the finest fleece is selected for our main objective, hand crafted ladies fashions.

Once shorn and graded, the finest fleece is used to create the softest double-knit hand knitting yarns. These yarns are created without dying, using a blend of the natural alpaca shades to create our annual supply of pure 100% alpaca yarns. We choose not to dye our yarns, but that is an alternative. We have been asked if we sell yarns in red and navy blue. However with our methods, we have been unable to breed the quality red and navy blue coloured alpacas needed for the industry.

Wellground Farm is now a modern, self contained 'Cottage Industry’. Having created these lovely alpaca yarns, we convert them into hand knitted ladies fashions. The jumpers, jackets, cardigans and accessories are all hand made using intricate modern designs. Utilising patterns that enhance the natural luster within the product. Each garment is carefully crafted and takes weeks to create. These hand made alpaca products are individually and lovingly created for the lady who enjoys quality and exclusivity in her fashion wear.

Finally, after the production stage of this “Cottage Industry” the garments are ready for marketing. With no physical ‘alpaca shop’ at Wellground Farm, we decided to opt for a ‘Virtual Shop’ using the internet to market and sell the products worldwide. Continuing the theme of a Cottage Industry, we used our IT skills to create our own ‘Secure Payment’ online-store web site at www.wellground.net . The internet store has all the advantages of being a global marketplace, working quietly without sales staff and working across borders and time zones. The ‘Wellground Alpaca’ brand is becoming more and more sought after. Selling our highest quality hand knitted fashions from America to Europe and beyond is amazing to us.

Although the sales of our products using the internet based online-store has been a very successful venture for Wellground Alpaca. The internet cannot provide the one thing that really stands our final product above other rival materials, the quality touch and feel of it. But nothing in life is perfect, except alpacas of course……..

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