Since we began alpaca farming more than 10 years ago -  we have been celebrating the natural colours of alpaca fleece.  With over 23 naturally occurring colours and shades of alpaca fleece, its easy with alpaca to create rich, warm and earthy tones - without any added colour treatments.  It’s the hallmark of alpaca fleece!

Recently however, we’ve been experimenting with natural dyes to expand our offerings - Natural dyes have been used for hundreds of years to colour all kinds of wool cloth and natural fibres.  We spend hours walking our farm fields harvesting plants and heading back to the studio where we start extracting the rich colours from the leaves, berries, and flowers we find on the farm.  It’s  an enjoyable way to spend the last hours of autumn searching for the right plants, in the best condition and hanging them to dry in the hot house while planning our projects.  Some common, easy to find dye sources include pokeberry, goldenrod, marigold, turmeric root, crushed acorns, and when looking further afield - pomegranates, beets and even the mighty avocado create fantastic colour for dying.

When you visit the farm this year, you will see a new garden at the entrance of the SHED shop - where we have curated our favourite plants used for dying some of our yarns.   We’ve marked each plant so you too can plan and plant a home garden that produces not only food but also herbs and fruits that produce intense dye baths.  Even weeds that you typically see growing along rural roadways were historically gathered as plant dye sources. You will look at every plant in a new way!

We hope you will look at what we have created with our small, curated range of hand-dyed all natural fibre-goods.  There’s something magical about using truly organic ingredients that you source locally from the natural environment.  Combined with the luxury of alpaca and the sustainable nature of alpaca farming, we hope you enjoy this new curated collection as much as we enjoy creating it for you!