"Best in Show" Winning photograph

Ashleigh Plante wins the Blue Ribbon and "Best in Show" for

Ashleigh Plante with ribbons!

Island Alpaca at VAOBA Expo for her photography:

Quite an accomplishment as her photo was one of over thirty photographs submitted for the competition! (Winning photo shown to the left) Other winners were David Hannon taking the Blue Ribbon for the category, "Farm Scene", and Barbara Ronchetti, the Blue Ribbon for the category, "Alpaca Interacting".

Posted with permission of Sandra Weber-- her kind words spoken about our alpaca "Bella". Thank you for writing Sandra, you and your new scarf are lovely!

Dear Bella -- thank you for your lovely warm fleece that made such a nice scarf -- I live in Arizona but at 4500' elevation so it gets cold here. Hope you and your daughter are doing well!

Dear Barbara - I'd be delighted if you shared the scarf and praise for Bella - with this scarf I used size 7 needles, and cast on 28 stitches - started with 6 rows garter stitch, then first 3 and last 3 stitches garter stitch and 22 stitches of seed stitch in between for each row, ending with 6 more rows of garter stitch to end - Just kept knitting until I had just enough yarn for the last 6 rows and bind-off row - wanted it to be as long as possible - (3.6 ounces of Bella yarn) When Son Jeff & Daughter-in-law Sue visited you last fall they'd taken a picture of Bella and sent it along with the yarn - just fell in love with her :o}  So did they, and they saw her daughter too - Just loved the critters humming to Jingle Bells - Thank you!  Sandra Weber

Island Alpaca visited the residents of Windemere Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on the morning of January 21, 2015  for their morning filled with fiber and furry fun!!  It was a load of fun and it was great to bring a smile to everyone's face. Alpacas Hot Shot a.k.a Hugo and Atticus Rex were the "Big Surprise" and everyone was very thrilled to meet them. Hugo loved giving everyone kisses! :)
Many thanks to our incredible staff, Ashleigh Plante and Andrea F. for introducing them to the newest alpaca enthusiasts, and thank you to David Hannon for taking these wonderful photographs!