After running the felting operation from the garage on our ranch the past five years, we have moved that aspect of our operations to the Nob Hill Fabric shop in Albuquerque. Conversations began with Liz Frank, the owner of Nob Hill Fabrics, after she moved her shop away from its Central Avenue location into a well-lit and […]
December Means Special Orders
Sandy’s favorite holiday (Thanksgiving) is over. Our phone and website are heavy with special order requests. It must be December? On the strength of our “Best Artist – Art to Wear Fashion” award at last September’s Western Design Conference and being added to a new boutique (Sacramento Mountain Weavers) there has been an up-tick in […]
The Rest of the Fiber Tour & Welcome A Newborn Alpaca to the World
This week’s blog will focus on the artisans to be found at stops 4, 5, and 6 of the East Mountain Fiber Farm & Studio Tour, which is this coming weekend June 11 and 12. Get your map here. Stop 4. The Woolshed at Maple Winds Farm This stop on the fiber tour is […]
Soigné d/b/a Slow Fashion
This weekend one of our sons, Chris, who did his culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu and has worked in fine dining restaurants in NYC, Boston and Girona, Spain explained the subtlety of the wonderful French verb “soigné(e)” to distinguish between fine dining restaurants and excellent restaurants. Fine dining restaurants are staffed, physically designed, and completely orchestrated […]
A Convocation of Creatives
I am so glad I attended the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, Washington this year. It was my second time at this wonderful festival of creativity. Once again I came away inspired, energized and armed with new fashion images. This five day show is huge. Over 400 vendors and 15,000 attendees. For five days […]
Like Looking Through a Kaleidoscope
Our efforts to combine silk and alpaca into sheer fabrics just turned another corner. Since we began Whispirit, we have felted without water to create our alpaca fabric. We have relied on a mechanized needle felting process to create yards of stable and strong textiles. With this process we have been able to range between more dense outer […]
Dying for Red
When we were identifying product for our Valentine’s Day sale, we were intrigued by the prominence of the color red in our designs and in our customers’ purchasing patterns. This made us curious, why red? The historians amongst us will tell you red is the oldest color. Many fashionistas will tell you that red never […]
Hearing the Music of the Earth … From the Garage?
I am certain that George Santayana anticipated Whispirit’s creations when he wrote: “The earth has music for those who listen.” This is the time of year when Sandy seeks solitude to listen for the “music” that inspires her creativity which become Whispirit creations. You might think that Sandy would escape to a remote high mountain or […]
Spring is Just Around the Corner … Really … No Kidding…
It may surprise our friends who are digging out from one of the worst snowstorms to hit the east coast in many moons, but we are already making fabric for Whispirit’s 2016 spring designs. For our lighter weight spring garments we felt spiderweb thin layers of alpaca into silks, cottons and linens which becomes the […]
Finding Whispirit’s 2016 Groove
All of us at Whispering Spirit Alpacas are concluding a much needed break over the winter holidays which graced us with travels to Spain & France, time with parts of our family and opportunities to ponder ideas for our Whispirit 2016 creations. Traveling gives us a great chance to change our rhythm, take in […]
Saki, Cisco and their Collaborative “Brown and White Chocolate” Fabric
“How do you make that?” asked the excited purchaser of the lovely Kasode jacket you see pictured. It’s a frequent question. Laurie Schatzberg said, “Thanks for a fantastic afternoon of shopping, and communing with you all … And those wonderful dogs and alpacas! I’ll be back for sure!” Doesn’t she look great? First, of course, […]
Artisan Fabrics — Creating A New Fabric Tradition
Whispirit’s Artisan Fabrics are first and foremost felt. It is a non-woven, tangled natural mammal fiber textile. We consistently have people express confusion because they have seen alpaca and merino felt before, but have never seen a fabric like Whispirit’s. If you haven’t had the opportunity to touch and feel our fabrics, let us describe our […]
Fall Preparations for Winter
This year, fall on New Mexico’s desert high plains has been unseasonably warm, pushing thoughts of winter into the distant future. But, the signs of winter’s approach are everywhere, and they should be unmistakable. 365 bales of hay just arrived in the barn to the delight of the alpacas. This cache is intended to get […]
Just Like a Spider
Through the summer and into the fall the spiders work overtime to decorate our house with complex webs. By the time Halloween comes around, we look a bit ominous. I find something fascinating about spiders and their earnest and dedicated work. Today while enjoying an unusually warm fall day outside the loom room, we […]
New Silver Grey, Rich Cinnamon and True Black Outerwear Fabric
We are ready to sell our heavier weight alpaca fabrics for winter jackets and coats. Silpaca Outerwear contains double the amount of alpaca/merino fiber that we use to make our lightweight summer/office silpaca fabrics. This warm fabric will make a lovely coat, as you can see from the coats pictured below. What you can’t tell […]
On The Road
Now that we are on the road traveling to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the Western Design Conference, it feels good to just drink in the beauty of the western skies and mountains and to feel the coolness of Fall. It has been a busy summer designing new fabrics and new apparel designs to showcase the […]
Getting Ready for Fall
I cannot believe it is the last full week of August. Where did the summer go? I imagine those who have returned to the classroom in whatever capacity are wondering the same thing. The last week of August means we will soon learn if Whispirit is selected as a finalist for the Martha Stewart American […]
The Alpaca Batt Channel
So I imagine you have been waiting to hear what happens next after Sandy is done skirting… Once we have separated good from unusable fleece (at least for our purposes), we bag, box and ship the fleece to one of the mills we use for processing. Because we require the processing to be done […]
