Eddie Etherton

My name is Eddie Etherton. My wife Gale and I own an alpaca farm & boutique. We started raising alpacas in 2004 with three females. We now have over 50 alpacas on our farm. When the breeding part of the business slowed in 2009 we made the decision to enter the alpaca retail market. We joined a fiber pool to utilize our fiber. We send them fiber and they produce our finished products such as, socks, gloves, scarves, and hats.

We showed alpacas and when at one of the shows we decided to take a felting class. The project was to felt a coozy. We did it and they were absolutely horrible. They didn't look anything like they were supposed to. My first thought was obviously I'm not a fiber artist. This continued to gnaw at me and I started researching on the internet. I now love to felt. I use beautiful silks and acid dyes that I purchased from Dharma to create a variety of styles of scarves, shawls and hand bags. I wet felt 100% alpaca, nuno felt with silk and alpaca, also we create 100% silk scarves using the Japanese technique; Arashi Shibori which I also incorporate into my felting. I love this technique and use it as a way to add depth and character to each piece. All of my pieces are one of a kind and I couldn't duplicate them if I wanted to, which I don't.

What inspires me? Good question. The alpaca is such a unique fiber and sharing it with others is one inspiration. Then there is the therapeutic aspect of losing yourself in each creation as the world fades away. How about just having an idea pop in your head and making it become a reality or starting a project and have it change to something totally different. Maybe it's that feeling I get when someone else is willing to part from some of their hard earned cash because they have to have something I just created or maybe, just maybe it's all of these things that gives me inspiration.