EAA Annual Member Picnic & Fiber Sort
Saturday, August 5
We've coordinated our Annual EAA Member Picnic with the annual Fiber Project sorting for a full day packed with fiber, food and fun at Autumn Mist Alpaca Farm and Fiber Mill! Register TODAY!
We'll start the day with a fiber mill tour and dive into hands-on fiber sorting and grading. Additionally, we'll have a couple of short dyeing and herd evaulation seminars. You can choose what interests you most.
We'll gather for the annual picnic lunch and if there's enough interest, carry into dinner.
Agenda
8:30 – 9:30 Coffee/walk through the mill – importance of grading and sorting
9:30 -12:30 Hands-on Grading and Sorting (at no cost and will continue all day)
12:30-1:30 ANNUAL EAA MEMBER PICNIC -- (please register & bring a dish-to-pass)
Herd Evaluation Seminar - Randy Strong, speaker
1:30-4:30 Demonstrations w/hands-on instruction include: hand-painting, dip-dyeing, crockpot dyeing, vat dyeing
Additional discussions include acid vs natural dyes and over-dying (registration required)
4:30-6:00 Grading and sorting
Sponsorships
Sponsors play a vital role in offsetting conference costs and keeping registration fees manageable:
- $200.00 will give you the opportunity to put a full page flyer in with the conference handouts (format TBD)
- A written thank you in the conference hand outs for your sponsorship
- One 9x9 pen to showcase you herdsire, room for you to bring a table to display your farm info/herdsire, info/fleece etc...
- 10 min of fame to talk about your farm at welcoming or lunch
- Your banner in displayed if you provide it.
Host Farm
Leslie & Jeff Jorritsma
Autumn Mist Alpaca Farm, Fiber Mill & Petting Farm
11579 Wessie Rd
Prattsburgh, NY 14873
Hands-on Sorting & Grading Seminar
Come learn how to sort and grade fiber based on length, micron, color for mill processing by sorting the EAA fiber donated for the 2023 run!
This seminar includes a tour of the fiber processing mill explaining each step and the importance of sorting and grading.
Enjoy learning with your peers!
Dyeing Seminars
We'll explore various dyeing techniques. Final demonstration(s) still to be finalized.
PLUS discuss pro's and cons of dyeing with natural dyes vs acid dyes AND using a large dye vat (on a larger scale-you can achieve the same using a large pot on a stove). We will do both washed fiber and skeins of yarn.
A) Hand painting yarn -- just as it sounds -- painting each skein of yarn with a paintbrush! We will do this with a couple of skeins of yarn and then go thru the process of setting the color, rinsing and hanging to dry.
B) Dip Dyeing & Crock Pot Dyeing -- go thru the process with dip dyeing a batch of yarn with an electric cooker or gas grill and also go thru the process of dyeing different colors in the crock pot. Will also talk about setting the dye, rinsing and hanging to dry.
We will also be demonstrating the difference in dyeing with white fiber versus fawn fiber versus brown fiber.
Bring your yarn to work with or purchase some from the EAA Yarn project who will be set up!
Here's your registration form: REGISTER TODAY!
Herd Evaluation Seminar
While gathering for lunch, Randy Strong will discuss the importance of herd evaluation.
What is a HERD evaluation? Find out what can be done or provided to assist you in your breeding program.
Topics include:
- How to use the herd evaluation.
- How to make breeding decisions.
- Which alpacas are moving your program forward and which are not.
- Which to breed or sell.
- What are your farms plans?
- What are your farm wants?
- What are your farm needs?
- Which males should be herdsires! !
Registration
A small fee for dye seminars, but most events are FREE, however, sign-up is required so we can plan accordingly.
$25 for EAA members
$50 for non- members
Here's your registration form: REGISTER TODAY!