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Often called "the American camel" by zoologists, the
alpaca interestingly enough is actually an American humpless
camel, a surviving species of a family and genera which once
populated all of the Americas, north and south.
Shown here is an alpaca cria, happy enough with life. The alpaca
comes in many colors from pure white, greys, browns and tans
to jet black, hence the multitude of natural colors you see
in our line of wholesale alpaca sweaters. Other species of the
genus called the llama and the vicuña still occur in
the wild in protected reserves, relics of the millenia before
man even settled in South America. They as well have been domesticated
into herds. But the domesticated alpaca herds, as with sheep
herds, are valued primarily for wool for making alpaca sweaters
and other articles of alpaca clothing. Constant shearing of
the alpacas as with sheep provides the valued wool fiber for
woven and knitted garments. Alpacas are social and playful animals.
The alpaca seen here is a happy little youngster and supplies
the softest and most coveted fiber. She is modeling her built
in sweater.
The alpaca has lightweight, fluffy, long but dense hair,
moreso than it's cousin the llama. That soft insulating coat
keeps the animal warm in its native habitat of the high vertical
Andes, in which cold, misty, rainy humid air not without frost
and snow is the norm. One wouldn't think that a locale right
on the equator itself could be as downright cold and challenging.
Without doubt nor wonder, there is no fur bearing animal on
this planet which has hair with the insulating and yet the aesthetic
qualities of alpacas.
The wool of the alpaca is optimal for sweaters, scarves,
hats and gloves and could be described as a long straight thinner
soft silky smooth fiber, unlike shorter rabbit hair and rougher
surfaced, kinky wool fibers. Alpaca wool therefore doesn't shed
from garments nearly as much and itches the skin less. Because
of alpaca fiber's longer length, straigtness and thinness, when
spun into yarn they lay closer together in a woven or knitted
product, providing a dense trapped air space which of course
is optimum insulation. In other words, alpaca's fineness,
softness and denseness makes a rather thin sweater into a warm
one, more so than sweaters made of coarser wools such as sheep
wool. For the same weight or thickness alpaca wool sweaters
are almost doubly efficient. An alpaca sweater for example needn't
be thick to provide warmth and can be worn over a shirt and
under a sport coat without taking up a lot of dimension, yet
is as warm as a thicker bulkier sheep wool sweater, and far
more warm than synthetic fiber or cotton. Therefore it can be
packed in a smaller roll when travelling.
Spinning yarn is many times done using two hands while women
are walking! It's normal to see women actually spinning yarn
while walking, almost unconsciously, from a ball of wool, with
a small wooden spindle accepting the twisted yarn. It takes
just about the same amount of time to spin the yarn as it does
to knit it into garments although the knitting process is done
while seated, waiting for a bus, in the bus or passing time
at home or at the home of friends. The precision of this hand
spinning process is amazing, all done to use the time productively
while simply 
walking from one place to another. Note the young Cañari
tribe woman walking amongst ruins of her ancient Inca ancestors
high in the Andes north of Cuenca. You can see the white yarn
filament extending from the ball of white wool supported by
a stick held in the left hand and fed by the thumb and forefinger
to the small wooden spindle twirled in the thumb and two fingers
of the r ight hand. Extremely precise thin yarn, approaching
thread, can be made using this simple method. It's not as easy
as it looks however, a fair amount of practice is needed to
perfect this method. Thin yarns can only be made of long fiber
wool. The Cañari tribe by the way are known for their
efficiency and honest ways.
The incredible softness and stability of alpaca alone
makes all sweaters and finished goods very desirable. For decorative
items such as our rugs, teddy bears and other items alpaca can't
be beat.
Alpacas are not killed for their wool. Your alpaca wool
sweater didn't take the life of an animal. In fact, it provided
in part for that animal to be needed, produced and live. As
with wool producing sheep, alpacas produce a lot of long fiber
wool, and are sheared regularly to obtain their wool fiber for
garment production. They don't require domestic food since they
graze on what they grazed upon for many hundreds of thousands
of years. Actual alpaca hides however, used in decorative items,
are obtained either from fallen animals of all ages or, as with
any leather, as by product of occasional meat production. Alpaca
wool garments such as sweaters, scarves, caps and gloves don't
originate from hides. Younger fallen animals provide an extremely
soft stable fur, priced higher due to its rarity. Native Americans
in South America consume the nutricious sweet low fat mature
alpaca meat occasionally just as Arab tribes occasionally consume
the desirable camel meat, a cousin of alpaca. Just as with their
sheep, the native Americans value their alpaca herds much more
for their wool fiber producing capabilities than any other.
Llamas, another species of the genus, are used more for
burden as would be burros and horses, but the majority are simply
pets and sheared for coarser wool used solely by their native
American owners. vicuñas are a smaller species which
produce less wool. vicuña wool is highly desirable and
rather expensive due to its lesser production, and often used
to mix with alpaca fiber to further increase softness and density
and likewise the cost of the finished product.
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