Farm Grown Knitwear
hats, scarves, mittens & more plus connection to the alpacas who grew them
Are you looking for quality cold weather wear that will work with your existing wardrobe?
Tired of buying clothes that only last a season before they end up in the donation pile…or the trash?
Our annual Harvest Knitwear Collection released each fall combines lightweight warmth with a timeless style.
At Old Homestead Alpacas, we mindfully raised a herd of suri alpaca for their luxurious natural fiber which we turn into craft yarns and a collection of professionally machine-knit garments.
Our hats, beanies, gloves, mittens, and scarves are start-to-finish 100% made in the USA, using only small businesses - many of which are right here in our community.
Each piece is hand dyed in small batches using the heirloom dye plants and flowers also grown right here on the farm.
Experience the vibrant, all natural color that won’t fade or rinse out, atop our naturally soft, supple alpaca fiber.
Each piece is unique, built to last and proves that small farms, sustainable textiles and American manufacturing is not just possible, but also curiously beautiful.
Heirloom treasures - Wardrobe staples - Quality Cold Weather Gear
Our Farm story (abridged)
Watch each of our seasonal videos to learn more about how our farm started and continues to evolve.
Unedited - The long back story
Mike & Elaine Vandiver
We purchased our 10-acre property in late 2013 as a way to start anew after learning a traditional family wasn’t in the cards for us.
Picking an old house with acreage on the outskirts of town was a deliberate move. In order for me to truly find acceptance with the reality that we could not have children, I needed to be in a place that encouraged it. And that place was definitely not the subdivision filled with growing families that we were currently living in.
The property out on the State Line with ten acres seemed sufficient. It had a big old red barn that reminded me of the ones I saw growing up in Indiana, along with a handful of funky old outbuildings.
And of course, the farmhouse. A two-story folk Victorian number, with a wraparound porch. The whole place had charm, potential and good bones. If you could look past the peeling paint & tatters of time.
In other words, it was a lot like us.
The seller told us that it was “an old homestead” and that “those two llama come with the place”.
As city kids, we were unfamiliar with both homesteads and llamas. But we were in a place in life where we weren’t going to questions things. And after 7 years of unsuccessful infertility treatments, I just didn’t have much fight left in me.
So a homestead with llamas it was.
In the late evenings, we would often look over those old homestead documents that the seller left for us. They outlined how a man from Iowa named Nathaniel S. Gholson spent five years from 1870 - 1875 settling & improving the land in order to own it.
It was impressive to read, and fitting to learn of the heritage while we worked tirelessly renovating the farmhouse.
The parts of the home we were repairing were added mid-century when the house got indoor plumbing and heating.
All the old bits of the house were fine. Solid, actually.
We discovered the walls were constructed entirely of rough hewn lumber, 2 inches thick in most places - and have saw marks from its originally milling, which was likely done onsite. The original pine floors, once refinished, confirmed they were built for this specific house as every plank runs the entire span of each room.
The first spring arrived and the pastures quickly sprang to life. And those two rough-around-the-edges llama, named LeRoi & Loretta by the way, well they could not keep up with the grass. It didn’t take long before the pastures had grown into a glorious sea of green.
But with all our resources tied into farmhouse renovations, we couldn’t exactly get a tractor.
So naturally, we got the next best thing: alpaca.
You know . . . the cute, smaller, softer version of llamas.
They were supposed to be nothing more than cute little lawnmowers. And they were. But it sorta took a whole gaggle of them to keep up with the grass. And then they needed to be shorn.
And that pile of raw fleece had to go somewhere.
Ultimately, I started having it professionally spun into yarn . . .
…and that’s kind of how I launched our farm business, in a nutshell.
But it doesn’t exactly end there, that is truly just the beginning…
With a herd of white, brown and black alpaca, I craved more vibrant colors.
The vast majority of dyes available were acid-based and had somewhat scary handling & disposal requirements. I didn’t like the idea of putting acid on the ultra soft, extra fine fiber. And I certainly didn’t like the idea of disposing of it in our septic system which ultimately returns to the land.
That’s what lead me to discover natural dyeing - using plant based dyes. I descended quickly into the beautiful rabbit hole of heirloom plants & flowers that produce light & color-fast dyes.
I had an old paddock alongside the farmhouse that wasn’t being used. So I bought seed for marigold, coreopsis, dyer’s chamomile, sulfur cosmos and madder root and called it a garden.
I was growing the fiber and the dye stuff. And I was selling yarn and machine knit garments - all using our herd’s fiber. It was fantastic.
But I was a 5 o’clock farmer. Both Mike and I had day jobs to pay the mortgage and bankroll the renovations.
By the 4th year having the farm and the little business, it was getting harder & harder to go to a cubicle every day. Leaving the herd and this little slice of heaven everyday was not easy.
If only I could do this full time . . .
But the reality of fiber farming is that it is inherently a long-lead process. Our herd takes a full year to grow the fiber. After it is shorn each year, it takes about another 8 months to get it spun at an artisan fiber mill. A couple more months for the machine knitter to produce the garments. Then I need a few months to hand dye it all.
On average, that means it takes 2 years to bring one fiber harvest to market.
That’s a long time to leverage, considering there are costs all along the way. It seemed nearly impossible to ever leave the day job with a plan like that.
One spring while starting seeds in my greenhouse, I had an idea.
What if I just start selling some flowers?
After all, I was already growing dye flowers - why not try a few varieties for cutting? An annual crop with a comparatively lower price point seemed like a good fit.
So in the summer of 2017, I grew 100 row feet of zinnia, cosmos, sunflowers and celosia.
I mostly watched them grow & brought them in the house for my own enjoyment. As the summer went on, the more I cut, the more they produced. So I started to take some into the office.
I put a vase on my desk. Then I added another one by the printer so everyone could enjoy. I dabbled in ‘arranging’ by making posy bouquets for the ladies’ room - and those were always a big hit.
Growing cut flowers alongside the alpacas was simply beautiful and it taught me so much. It slowed me down, but also put more purpose in each step.
At the beginning of 2018, I got the nerve up and asked my boss if I could switch from full time to part time.
Surprisingly, she said yes, and the schedule change allowed me to tend to the garden, cut flowers during the weekday mornings so I could ultimately attend the Saturday farmer’s market.
That first year at market was my bravest year (currently) on record. Using a truck-bed trailer that Mike and I fashioned to become a flower cart - I toted it to market and set up next to real farmers. I named the operation Gholson Gardens, paying homage to the original homestead family.
I sold more bouquets in 2018 than I ever thought I could even grow! Towards the end of market season, I was hesitant to introduce some of my freshly dyed alpaca goods alongside the flowers fearing it would be ‘too weird’ from a branding perspective and/or people just ‘wouldn’t get it’.
Turns out it wasn’t weird and people definitely got it! In fact, I sold more yarn & knitwear in the last month of the market than I had over the last 3 years combined!
From an operational perspective, diversifying with cut flowers has infused a beautiful synergy across my entire farm . . .
Spring is all about seeding annual flowers and harvesting the alpacas fiber. Summer is about growing & selling flowers, while the alpacas work on growing their fleece. At the end of summer and as fall sets in, the yarn and knitwear returns from the mill. With flowers coming out of season, I spend less time in the garden, with most of my days spent in the old milking parlor-turned dye studio getting it all dyed up - using the dye flowers I dried, froze & stashed all summer. In early fall, I release the Harvest Knitwear Collection online as well as at local farmer’s markets.
The winter is my time to recharge. Apart from feeding the herd and stock piling their manure to become the primary amendment to the cutting gardens in spring, I spend time reconnecting, knitting, planning & storing energy for the coming year.
No one day is like another, and every season varies from the next.
It’s a beautiful rhythm. It has made me not only appreciate seasonality, but embrace it wholeheartedly. Everyday I’m filled with gratitude for a life that has sprung from such heartache. I endeavor to approach all my days with the same honest receptivity that lead me here in the first place. And since leaving the day job entirely in the spring of 2019, I’m grateful at the opportunity to be dedicating all of my days to building our own version of a family & legacy right here on the homestead.
