EPISODE NOTES
Welcome to the podcast for alpaca people!
In this episode, I am in conversation with Lanette Frietag of FeltLOOM.
Lanette has long-term experience with alpacas and other fibre animals and even owned some of the early imports of alpacas to the US. Before that, she had llamas, because there weren’t any alpacas.
How do you scale up your use of fleece to make living, or at least cover the costs of feeding your alpacas? We all face that challenge. Lanette discovered first wet-felting and then needle-felting, by hand. Recognising a machine was needed to scale up, they searched but could not find one, so they developed their own! The FeltLOOM.
I hope you enjoy this episode of how things began for Lanette and why. Also, watch out for a bonus episode coming soon, that will give even more of the backstory.
- FeltLOOM website – description of the machine with pictures and videos
- Punched card – Wikipedia – Some background to punched cards for computing for those who are too young to remember them.
Developer of the FeltLOOM. Involved with early importing of alpacas to the US
Developer of the FeltLOOM. Involved with early importing of alpacas to the US
FeltLOOM® Needle Felting Machine | Fabric Making Machine
The FeltLOOM® is a needle-felting machine designed for textile research, development and small scale production. Artists, Designers & Researchers in 17+ countries use FeltLOOM® to design, create & produce new fabrics – reducing and eliminating textile waste.
https://www.feltloom.com/
If you would like to be in touch, please contact me by email – steve@alpacatribe.com – or leave me a voicemail from your browser.
Alpaca Tribe is hosted and produced by Steve Heatherington of Good Podcasting Works, which is part of The Waterside (Swansea) Ltd
Hello and greetings from Australia.
Thank you for sharing your story. It is the same the world over. The delight in breeding alpacas and learning all about their personalities etc. as well as their fleece known affectionately as ‘The fibre of the Gods.’ With that though comes the question ‘What do you do with all that wool?’ With your hard work and ingenuity we are blessed with your FeltLOOM!! Thank You! What an amazing machine. The creative products that can be made with it is incredible and limitless. But you know what I say is true Lanette so I say to those who do not have one yet, if you get a chance to use one or see one in action you will want one!
I have had mine since 2014 and have never looked back only forward to exploring new ways to create with it.
Kind regards
Judy Roberts