Our Passion for Fashion!

Life on a Diversified Family Farm

Despite the unprecedented cool weather and abundant rain, spring has sprung at WoodsEdge! Flowers, crias (baby alpaca and llamas) and yak calves are each welcomed with delight. The herds run and romp through the lush green pastures. Our grass fed beef are content and although our honey production is somewhat hampered by the rain, our hives are healthy and the bees enjoying the increased bee friendly plantings we have done.

  

Our alpaca and llama fleece harvest was done in late March and early April this year so we could get the fleece into manufacturing channels sooner, with some exquisite hand-spinning fleeces pulled aside for our upcoming annual Summer Stitch, Spin ‘n Sip on June 23. The yak soft down is still being harvested, but visitors to our Farm Store will be totally enthralled with the yak fiber, rovings and yarns we already have processed and ready to sell.

 

We welcome your visit to our Farm Store filled with the bounty our 90 acre diversified family farm produces. Please visit soon! We are open from 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

 

Fashion Forward - Spring 2013

New York is abuzz as Fashion Week rolls into town! These runway shows symbolize the beginning of the spring! 

 

The Spring 2013 colors and styles are already well defined and are just now beginning to hit retail stores across the country. We thought perhaps a report on the fashion colors for Spring 2013 would help you – whether you are buying new clothes for yourself, products for a farm store or dyeing yarns and spring accessory items like we are.

It’s a good year to use those natural alpaca colors – particularly the beiges and light fawns, as well as silvers. You know, of course, that you can “create” your own silver by adding 10% black fibers to 90% white fibers. It is a perfect way to use what the alpaca industry has called “contaminated” grey or black fibers. Here at WoodsEdge we have been “creating” grey yarns since the late 70’s in sheep’s wool, as there were few light silver grey fleeces!

I particularly like to add my own signature to the beige or light fawn products by over dyeing with a pale pink Linen or soft Nectarine. I feel these over-dyed colors are more feminine, more saleable, and look better on more skin tones.

Handspun handknit shawl made from medium silver grey alpaca overdyed with a hint of blue.
Vintage WoodsEdge circa 1990's.

It is also definitely the season to over dye light silver grey. We are excited to have four new grey alpaca yarns to add to our repertoire this spring and look forward to over dyeing the pale silver grey as well as the variegated silver grey and soft brown tweed as soon as this arctic air mass dissipates. This is the perfect natural color to over dye to achieve the dusky blues, Grayed Jades and muted lavenders such as African Violet. In fact, many of the blues shown this season could be over dyed on pale silver. With blues being one of the easiest colors to wear by many different skin tones, it is sure to be the color you will want to stock up on if you are in retail.

The new bright colors on the scene are Emerald and Tender Shoots (aka chartreuse), which look fabulous with Monaco Blue or Dusk Blue. Poppy Red paired with white, navy or black continues to be a quintessential All American favorite.

News to Yak About

Brent, our head yak master here at WoodsEdge, just returned from the International Yak Show and Conference, held annually at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado. He had a great time, made lots of friends and bought the Reserve Champion bull along with a few other cows. Photos should be forthcoming on our new Tibetan Yak Foundation Female and Signature Sire pages, on our web site. It is not live yet, but keep checking - it will be soon!

Stock Yards at the 2013 National Western Stock Show, Denver, CO

Coincidentally, on Brent’s first day back at the farm, a new yak heifer calf born! It was a typical winter thaw January day in New Jersey with temperatures climbing out of the deep freeze to start snowing, then sleeting and gradually warming up enough to rain. After growing up in Iowa, New Jersey weather never ceases to amaze me after 40 years of living here!  

Fortunately, this mama yak was no ordinary cow. She is one of the infamous elite McRobert/Puckett yaks, who we affectionately call Boss Mama. She has earned her title respectfully as a stellar wooly Imperial who is a no nonsense mama and herd protector. A little funky New Jersey weather was not about to get in her way of birthing another outstanding wooly Imperial yak! Ollie, our resident yak whisperer, and caretaker of yak has done a marvelous job with taming this wild and wooly group from Nebraska! Hence it was no surprise to Ollie that Boss Mama chose the dry bedding in the barn to have her new calf. I am sure Jerry McRoberts (God rest his soul) never imagined one of his cantankerous cows choosing a barn to birth in, but then that is why we have always said the animals who are lucky enough to be chosen as WoodsEdge bloodstock come to the WoodsEdge Spa and Resort.

Boss Mama with her 2 day old calf.

We are happy to report that Boss Mama and her lively heifer calf that is up and running, are both doing fine! This calf takes its place as one of the elite few who earned the name as McRoberts’ BEST, out of his two best bulls that he sold to Tad Puckett along with this elite group of cows right before he died. Having known Jerry and his brother Wayne, and their wives Barb and Cathy (who was one of our first alpaca garment models) since the mid 1980’s, I am sure Jerry would be pleased his elite yak who were the love of his life (other than his wife and daughter Brooke) are in a breeding program that is determined to take Tibetan Yak to the next level.

Thanks Jerry! With every calf out of your breeding program, your name and reputation as the foremost breeder of Tibetan Yak in North America remains talked about! Brent and I are so grateful we have these genetic treasures in our herd.

Yakfully yours,

Linda Berry Walker & Brent Walker

Breeding Award Winning Fibers since 1976