From Family Farm to Fantastical Felt, these handcrafted Alpaca Felt OhmGnomes Hats are designed with Magic, Quality, and Regenerative Sourcing in mind! Crafted at 4000m (12,000ft), high in the Andes mountains, in an entirely off-grid workshop on a fully closed loop farm from the very fuzzy alpacas that live there, each of our OhmGnomes Gnome Hats is a unique experience of the majesty that the great Apus, or Mountain Spirits, and their caretakers have to share with the world.
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There are never doubles or copies, so each creation is unique and special!
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Every base hat is designed and produced by the Avedaño Mamani Family, a small family of 4, in the Sicuani - Cuzco Region of the Peruvian Andes from Alpacas they’ve long raised themselves. Every hat is made from wool that is handshorn, handwashed, and hand felted. Then Miguel of OhmGnomes adorns each piece with Naturally Dyed Wool, regeneratively and directly sourced from Middle Earth Farmers and Fuzzy Friends between Mendocino County and Northern Washington in the United States. Through a dry felting process called “needle felting” Miguel attaches fiber to fiber, blending colors and designs into each base hat. All colors on this hat are plant based and produced from personally organically grown or wildcrafted herbs from the PNW & Central California Coast.
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Wear & Care Instructions:
No 2 hats are ever exact, each with their own unique natural flare and color variation. Each OhmGnome Gnome Hat is crafted to be MOLDABLE AND SHAPEABLE! FIND YOUR OWN MAGICAL SHAPE! FOLD UP THE BACK, PUSH IN THE TOP, OR WEAR IT AS IT IS! Wool is naturally water repellant, flame retardant, dirt and smell resistant, anti bacterial and microbial, home compostable, body temperature regulating, EMF blocking, and lifelong! Every piece is crafted to last for a lifetime of daily use! Find your lifelong friend in the Workshop today and be ready to set out on your next adventure!
Care instructions:
Spot Clean & Air Dry
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Our Philosophy:
A Slow and Fair Fashion is highly important for OhmGnomes as we create and share treasures with the world. The gnomies of the Avedaño Mamani Family are more than just our producers, they’re part of our Tribe and as such we strive to foster them as they foster us. Once in an unfortunate spot where their raw alpaca fiber was making less than $3/kg, now, teamed together with OhmGnomes, are earning over 5x more money per hat than they would be selling the equivalent in wool raw and are enjoying the freedom to create!
Similarly with the Inuma and Panduro Shipibo families, we are patronizing our friends to the most of abilities so that this intergenerational and intergender group of artists may continue to produce the magic and art of their people without fear of scarcity and need to abandon their ways of old for those of a stressful modernity.
Beyond the label “Fair Trade” we believe in Happy & Transparent Trade where producer, middle gnome, and future buyer are all happy and fulfilled by their piece in the puzzle of connecting the world. We aim to pay well, connect people around the world, and embrace the magic of creativity and art all through the Original OhmGnomes Felt Hat!
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The Wool Industry:
Much like industrial agriculture has tranquilized the small farmer and rancher in the United States by reducing mainstream accepted prices of one’s product to a dismal value, the same has happened for the wool industry in Peru. Cheap foreign mixed Alpaca/polyester clothing has cut prices to 1/6th of what the wool value was 10 years ago and that has trickled down on a global scale to affect what the average buyer will pay for wool of any sort in general. “Colored” wool versus white wool has also experienced a devaluation to the point that colored Alpaca were almost driven out of existence in Peru because their fiber couldn’t earn the farmer enough to survive on. We, together, are not going to let this happen though! By supporting farm direct wool from our Cuzquenian Fibershed we are striving to do all we can to support bringing awareness, color, and money back into this hard pressed industry from the flock to Magic. Felt.
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