Natural Fibre Festival Showcases Award-Winning Alpacas

Julie Druker | Sep 04, 2013

It is the wooly-headed mop tops of the 35-member alpaca herd that first attract the attention of visitors at the 5th annual Natural Fibre Festival, which took place this Labour Day weekend at Robert and Hanne Quigley' s farm near Ompah. Robert and Hanne Quigley of Silent Valley Alpaca have been breeding, raising and selling alpacas for over a decade now and both are happy to explain why they relocated from Toronto and ended up on a farm near Ompah raising what has become an award winning herd of animals. “It's rewarding and a totally stress-free life style and we love having animals that are not only unique but also beautiful too,” Robert Quigley said.

Hanne Quigley, who is also a wood turner, used to be a part of the Inroads Studio Tour until she realized that tour visitors paid far more attention to the alpacas then to her demonstrations of wood turning. “So we decided to hold a Natural Fibre Festival here,” she said.

The annual event included numerous workshops featuring many locals involved with natural fibres, who Hanne said are an extremely tight knit community. Mara Harrison of Perth gave a dyeing workshop. Shannon Cassidy Rouleau of Ballintotas Alpacas in Braeside demonstrated how to felt fibre around a bar of soap that is used as an exfoliating face cloth. Colleen Brouwer of Willhaven Ridge Alpacas in Orleans was demonstrating how to prepare raw alpaca fleece into a useable state and Susan Berlin, a spinner from Hood, demonstrated how to spin dog fur into a yarn that she uses to knit her dog figurines. Karen Moore, a weaver from Smiths Falls, demonstrated how to weave a scarf on a table loom and Laurie Ryder from Snow Road had her home made sweet and savory goods for sale on site.

Many of the visitors gathered by the gated pasture and watched as the alpacas roamed the land and nibbled at hay set up in a wheelbarrow nearby. In general the herd behaved as they normally do -curious, quiet and gently demonstrating their special connection to young children. The animals grow an incredibly soft fleece that is shorn just once a year in the early spring. It sells for $40 a pound (compared to sheep wool, which fetches just 12 cents per pound). After it is cleaned and spun into yarns, alpaca wool can be used to create a wide range of woven, knit, and felted products. Hanne highlighted the unique selling points of alpaca fleece. “It's warmer than sheep’s wool, softer, and stronger and it has insulating properties, which mean that it can be worn both in the summer and winter months depending on the garment.” it can also be worn by those who are allergic to wool since it does not contain lanolin. The Quigleys sell the fleece, yarns and other alpaca-related products at their home-based ranch store, which include hats, mitts scarves, duvets, blankets and more.

The Quigleys’ herd have established quite a reputation in the alpaca community. One of their males, a nine-year-old named Archemides, won grand champion in Orangeville in 2006 at the Alpaca Ontario show, placing first of 320 animals. Archemides is used as a herd sire and is bred with females from other herds all over the province. The Quigleys continue to show and breed their animals and they show them regularly at the annual fair in Maberly. Their business is stable and although the price of the animals dropped significantly after the bottom fell out of the American market in 2008, the annual festival continues to draw visitors and goes a long way in promoting the unique beauty of both the animals and their fleece.