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Effective Advertising - Deconstruction

This is by far the best advertising I have seen for alpaca fiber. I asked Vanity Apparel if I could write about it and they kindly said "Go ahead".

So what makes this effective?

1. The documentation in plain numbers of how many fiber producing animals there are in the world. Not just the United States, but the whole world. When you look at the numbers, it brings the idea home that there just aren't that many alpacas out there.

Those of us who live in Washington and Ohio tend to lose sight of that fact. These two states have the lions share of alpacas in the US and that makes it difficult to point out there just aren't that many to the local buyers of product.

2. The micron report. Out of all the alpacas out there, how many have the micron that the alpaca that provided its fleece has? This tidbit adds a sense of exclusive luxury.

3. The soft yet targeted rebuttal to mass production. I like how the individual alpacas whose fiber is included in the product are listed along with their micon. This lets the consumer know just how special their product/item is. A pride point to be talked about.

4. A website to verify the statistics that were quoted if one is in doubt.

5. All the statements are positive. No bashing of other fibers or other ways of processing. Just the positive aspects of this fiber, processed this way.

Weaning, or what happened to the milk bar?

Tank got an extra month with his mom because I did not want to put him in with the big boys all by him self and Pinon was too little to wean.

So the day came like any other day. We took the little boys for a walk, practicing their halter training skills, and their picking up their feet tolerance, as well as being poked and prodded and fiber looked at.

But wait! They were let out in the big boy pen. What a blast. Running and jumping and looking at all the new things. It did not hit home that they were separated from their mommies until night fall. Then, then we had whining. Poor things. I would have been more sympathetic, but the one doing the whining was Tank. The older, much bigger cria. Little Pinon was somewhat upset, but took it in stride.

The mothers did not look back. They would occasionally come to the fence to touch noses with their cria, but for the most part, it was peaceful on the girl's side.

Now it is a week later and everyone has adjusted. Now on to the new crias, the first one is due late March.

Triangle loom weaving

I am working on a shawl on the tri loom using my homespun black alpaca yarn and some pretty blue wool with some shiny beads.

I love the contrast. I am using two two ply strands of yarn. I found that the two strands work better than a single large strand when using alpaca.

It is slow going at the moment because the black is hard to see without good light. The window side is great, the other, not so much. Will have to figure out another way to light the loom. It is 7 foot across the top, so it a mite big to be lugging around, expecially with the shawl already started on it.