For the Love of Fibre…
Breeding Perfection through Perseverance!
Verlore Vallei Alpacas & Fibrecrafts strives to breed perfect alpacas with perfect fibre!
Alpaca
If you love fibre in all its yummy fiberliciousness, you’re at the right place! Here at Verlore Vallei Alpacas, we are mad about all things fluffy and fleecy, especially our cute and sometimes less than cuddly herd of alpacas. And because we love fibre in all its forms, we run a sustainable alpaca farm, where we strive to allow Mother Nature to come up with every colour imaginable…
Crimp & lustre
And it’s not just colour we’re after, it’s types of fibre too. That’s why we aim to breed top quality Suri and Huacaya alpacas – with a special emphasis on preserving the rare Suri – striving for perfect conformation, lustre, lock and crimp quality, low microns, limited guard hairs, but above all, retaining the lovely and diverse natural colour range alpacas are known for. We are one of the largest breeders of Suri alpaca in South Africa.
These beautiful Suri specimens on the left are roaming in Chile, at Quintescence alpacas, where most of our alpacas, and a large part of all alpacas in South Africa originally came from. The 2020 disaster put a very abrupt end to our planned import of a new Suri herd sire. For the time being, anyway… Breeding perfection is still on the cards… https://www.quintessencealpacas.com/
Handspun yarn
Lovely fine natural grey handspun alpaca yarn. An absolute delight to knit with, or for weaving! Dyeing just cannot come up with such perfection! And for those who don’t know it, handspun yarn is truly to be treasured! Lots of hands-on time, literally, goes into the creation of those beautiful strands! It cannot be compared to mass-produced industrial, machine spun yarns! Just like a Rolls Royce can never be compared to a Renault!
A plethora of Natural colours
Natural Alpaca colours
Besides the 16 ‘official’ colours on the left, there are virtually endless shades available inbetween.
Sadly, due to the corporate drive for maximum profits, coloured fleeces were deliberately bred away for decades, as mills could make more profit if they only focussed on a single colour run, and besides, they believed white fibre can be dyed in any colour the current fashion of the day could ever dictate. Thank goodness people have since woken up from their slumber, and now they have started appreciating and insisting on natural colours!
Natural dyes
No need to despair if you love your natural colours, but would love to add a splash of colour not included in Mother Nature’s alpaca-repertoire…
Natural dyes to the rescue! There is an infinite amount of natural dyes available, and we also offer a range of acid dyed fiber blends. These blends include merino or any of the dozens of other rare-breed sheep wool we have available, as well as silk, mohair, and a variety of other fibers. These will always be listed with the blends, bats, rolags or spun yarn.
And there’s more…
Since we love fibre, all kinds of fibre, this is where spinners will find everything they need to get their inspiration soaring! Mohair, Teeswater, Wensleydale and masham locks, cashmere, merino, Blue-faced leicester, Gotland, Shetland, Ryeland and Romney, Cheviot, Cotswold, the list just goes on and on…
And weavers can order their handspun yarns in either Z or S twist, depending on their designs! As we work through our sheep breed study, we will be adding the most promising breeds suitable for handspinners, sourcing fleeces and fibre from all over the world.
And that’s not all…
As this website is pretty much a work in progress, there is much, much more on the drawing board. But I won’t give it all away yet…!
Or just a small hint…
Follow the link and read up on our Mini Mill in the making! https://verlorevallei.com/