Rolling Oak Alpaca Ranch
RollingOakAlpacaRanch.com
618-201-2822
1335 Hall Church Road
Makanda, IL 62958
roarfibers@gmail.com
Judy Hoepker and Morgan Stevenson are a mother/daughter due who own Rolling Oak Alpaca Ranch.
About 13 years ago Morgan learned how to crochete. She first made gifts for friends and family, but didn’t like the yarn she was working with. It was acrylic yarn bought from the store that was scratchy! Morgan thought there’s got to be something softer and nice to make gifts with.
“So I did an internet search and I found alpacas,” Morgan said. “And I knew Mom had all this land out here, so I asked her. I said, ‘Hey, can I just get some alpacas and put them on your land. And I’ll shear them and spin and have my own yarn and make stuff?’ She was on board for that!”
We started with three and now we’re up to 29 alpacas.
“We hand make a lot of our products,” said Judy. “We try to use everything that the alpaca provides us. So we have high quality yarns that we’ll make into scarves, towels. Then we’ll move up into the next grade of yarn that we’ll use for hats and headbands. The fiber that’s not good enough to go in our yarn, we use that for things like dryer balls. We make our own goat’s milk soap. We felt the outside of the soap with the alpaca fiber. So it’s like having a self-cleansing wash cloth wrapped around your soap. We started a new candle line. They are cement vessels that we pour. We use a coconut wax. We name everything after the alpaca or farm somehow. We do a lot of weaving, a lot of knitting.”
Come and see us for our Christmas event the last weekend of November right after Thanksgiving, the first weekend of December. If you can’t make it then, go to our website, plan a tour. You book it right there. Look at what we have to offer. It there’s something you want that you don’t see, reach out to us. We’d be happy to answer questions.
