Hello Fiber Arts Friday followers!
A while back I told you about the unfortunate passing of my alpaca Miracle. We ended up processing her hide and sent it off to be tanned and made into a lap robe. Well the good news is our Miracle Blanket is finished! I picked it up from Sivko Furs, Inc on Sunday and have had a full week to enjoy it.
Sivko Furs did an awesome job! I’m thrilled with the outcome. The fur is held tightly to the hide and has been brushed clean and is so soft. Their seamstress did a beautiful job sewing on a soft beige color fleece. She managed to hide the seam for the majority of the blanket and only a small area at the neck shows her stitching where she had to turn the blanket inside out.
Per my asking she trimmed some of the neck off A) so we didn’t have a seam in the fleece backing and B) so I had a piece of fur hide to keep and play with for my own projects. They also included all the other little scraps of hide they trimmed off while making the finished blanket. Maybe in future FAF posts I’ll show you what I plan on doing with them all.
The look and feel of this blanket really made me think of the old carriage lap robes used to stay warm with on cold winter nights. Actually the authenticity of such a lap robe isn’t too farfetched. Did you know in the late 1800’s alpaca was more popular in the US than sheep’s wool? Unfortunately it was a short lived industry since the quantity needed to keep up with demand wasn’t there and sheep ended up taking over as a preferred fiber. Check out my post on Alpaca, Fiber of the Presidents for more info.
If any of you who end up in the same situation as I did be sure to read my post on preserving your alpaca hide and I highly recommend the kind folks at Sivko Furs who had a great turnaround time and a very fair price for processing our Miracle.
