My Name is Julie Follansbee and I am a dressmaker with an obsession for fabric...soft natural fabric. I first read about alpacas when studying textiles, dressmaking and clothing construction 30 years ago at the Fashion Academy of Pittsburgh. There was a small paragraph in a textbook (Textiles: Fiber to Fabric Fifth Edition by Dr. Bernard Corbman) that described the beauty, strength and luster of the alpaca fiber and for whatever reason stayed in the back of my mind. Then I went to work for a tailoring supply company known for carrying the most exquisite silks from the Orient, the finest wool suiting from Italy, and small yardages of fabrics used by designers of haute couture houses in all of the most fashionable cities in the world! I loved being in that shop, surrounded by such lovely things! Every once in a while, we would get a piece of alpaca fabric, usually blended with wool, but alpaca just the same. I remember it being the very softest fabric -"like butter", we would say when describing it to our clients. But the feeling of that fabric stayed with me all these years. I went on to have a business of my own, tailoring and constructing clothing especially for my customers and then moved to a new city where my husband and I started our family. I put my dressmaking business on hold and plunged in to volunteering at church and school and only using my sewing talents for those things. Every fall we would do the annual hayride and pumpkin search and again every once in a while an alpaca would pop up reminding me of that fabric.
Then, almost 2 years ago, we went to the first annual alpaca Farm Days at our local alpaca farm (Alpaca Ventures owned by Diane Beaver) and were able to really get up close and examine these peaceful creatures. I felt my blood pressure fall right on the spot because of their gentle humming sound and slow movements. Being with them reignited my passion for all things fabric! I started to study how I could become involved. Luckily we had moved to a nice 17 acre parcel of land several years ago so I knew we had the space but it was totally in the forest. It is by no means farmland, being rocky and wooded and full of lots of things that had to be removed. But after much discussion and after visiting my sister in law's neighbor's alpaca farm (Heaven Hills Alpacas owned by Alma and Michael Gelorme), as well as several others, my patient husband was convinced that this was something that we could do to use our land. He has helped me to make our alpaca farm become a reality. I participated in Northwest Alpacas interactive webinar series over the winter which I would highly recommend to anyone researching alpacas or even if you already have alpacas. In the summer of 2008 we traveled to Oregon to Northwest Alpacas to attend a 4 day workshop where we learned so much about alpacas and the industry and were particularly impressed with their scientific approach to the whole business. Fred Kraft and Mike Safely and all the folks at NWA are always ready, willing and especially able to help with our questions any time we need to speak with them. We purchased our 2 very pregnant females from them and they have each had their cria, our Firenze and Hamilton. Ishtar just gave birth a second time on July 4th, 2009 and Dovis is due mid August. When I began researching alpacas, I visited many farms and hundreds of websites in search of information and found that these were the sites I referred to most often. Since my focus has been the fiber, I purchased lots of yarn to try and figure out what the very best alpaca yarn felt like. I can't emphasize enough the need for all types of research. Every alpaca person we have been in contact with has been more than willing to help us with our project and it's nice to know that there is a community so interested in having this whole industry succeed. You'll find links throughout my website which I hope help!