Fall is here! Each year I used to get sad about putting away my pretty summer clothes, and had to give myself a pep talk to survive the upcoming 6 months of ugliness. In comparison with my summer closet, my winter clothes were all dark, bulky and boring; which was fine when it was keeping me warm, but sometimes they were just heavy and I was still cold!

In general I used to stay away from wool products, but I guess it was because I always picked the cheap stuff that was scratchy and difficult to keep on. Eventually I'd get too itchy, shed the layer that's supposed to be warm, and be all cold again.

Now you can imagine how excited I was when my friends and I were backpacking in Peru to Machu Picchu and introduced to this funny looking creature:

'The fiber of the gods' indeed! Such soft plushness and the culture being so rich in color made a good dent in my yearly clothing budget picking up sweaters, ponchos, scarves, and gloves. Now my closet is less boring, I get to be warm, while having warm, happy Alpaca thoughts.

During the trip we also stopped by a place that taught us how things were woven and dyed, it gave us a greater appreciation towards the handmade items I picked up there as well.

The material they ground up to make the dyes.

Soaking and boiling in the colors into the fibers.

Before they started the class, I thought we were getting food. lol

If you guys ever find yourselves in Peru, don't come back without some alpaca goodies. But if you don't have that chance, I was actually pretty impressed and the selection available as I browsed through my Etsy searches. Happy alpaca shopping this fall!

Post by Eugenia || www.moobury.com || Etsy || Facebook & Instagram @Moobury

Photo credit to Alex Zhang || Flickr @Kaiser Fenix