Sippican River Farms opens its doors for the holiday
Dec 15, 2019
Abby Iafrates with an alpaca. Photo by: Grace Ballenger
Three of the alpaca wearing festive holiday bows. Photo by: Grace Ballenger
An example of hand-spun alpaca yarn that uses fibers of different colors. Photo by: Grace Ballenger
Bronie shows Jamison Iafrades how fiber is processed into wool. Photo by: Grace Ballenger
Cheryl Rozenas shows how to spin fibers together.
Bronie Rozenas shows alpaca roving, or fibers that have been processed to face all in the same direction. Photo by: Grace Ballenger
ROCHESTER — Sippican River Farm may not have been blanketed in snow, but it was hard to miss the holiday cheer at its Christmas Open House, with warm cider, cookies, Santa hats on-hand, and alpacas wearing festive red bows.
Cheryl, Bronie and Hillary Rozenas were on hand on Dec. 14 and 15 to help visitors pose for photos, serve as photographer, sell goods, and give demos on how they make yarn from their alpacas.
The Rozenas shear their 20 alpacas in May. The Peruvian animals can only be shorn once a year, and doing it in the summer helps them to stay cool (though they still need to be hosed off, and enjoy the use of a small kiddie pool in summer).
After shearing, the fiber goes through a picker, and dirty or clean carder, to form roving, or aligned fibers that are not yet yarn. Then Cheryl spins some of the fibers into yarn.
Since it might take a month to get enough yarn to knit a hat, spinning just a few hours a day, the Rozenas also send some of the partially-processed fibers to The New England Fiber Pool in Fall River, which can also turn it into yarn.
