Southern Select Alpaca Show

In addition to seeing all the wonderful alpacas walking around in full fleece, you will see lots of end-products—clothes, art and furnishings—made from alpaca fibers, spinning and weaving demonstrations, seminars and a silent auction at the Southern Select Alpaca Show the weekend of March 5-6 in Shelbyville, TN.

On Saturday, there will be a team of fiber artists demonstrating the "Fleece-to-Shawl," taking raw, unprocessed fiber and making it into a beautiful woven shawl. The whole process should take around 5 hours to complete. And, the finished shawl will be auctioned off that evening to the highest bidder. This is really quite a fascinating demonstration! You can also check out the winners of the annual "Spin-Off" competition that reveals which alpaca fleece is best suited for a nice finished yarn.

Riverbend fiber artists, Susan Darling, Melissa McFail, Kathy Swift-Lawson and Marti Zoerb will be somewhere in the middle of all the commotion. So, head out to the show after the guild meeting on Saturday, March 5, or visit the show on Sunday, March 6.

—Susan Darling, Southern Select Chairman

Needle Felting with Alpaca

What do cookie cutters and alpacas have in common? Riverbend Fiber Arts Guild members found the answer to this question at the April program on Needle Felting.
Using the needle felting technique, a variety of items can be created including two-dimensional appliqués and surface design elements to 3-dimensional pins, buttons, beads, refrigerator magnets and figurines. You could even create a whole farmyard of needle-felted critters and pets!The guild program started with a discussion on safety precautions regarding the barbed needles that are used for needle felting. Cookie cutters served as the molds for creating the initial shape.
A demonstration was given on how the cutters were layered with alpaca fibers over a foam base. Using the barbed needles, the fibers were punched and felted together. Additional layers of fibers were added and needled to build and strengthen the base figure. Smaller wisps of fibers in contrasting colored were added to create the details.

These colorful needle-felted pieces using alpaca fibers were fun and easy to make. Oooh, the felting, sculpting and embellishing possibilities!Doggies, and kitties, and alpacas... oh my!