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Saltaire, in the county of Yorkshire, England, is renowned as the creation of a remarkable nineteenth century industrialist who was also a social reformer. Its solid stone-built houses are a lasting testament to a powerful textile-mill-owner who also wanted good living conditions for his workers.
But he was not always a powerful mill-owner. He was once a young man making his way in the woollen trade, charged with buying wool from the port. It was on one of his trips across country to the Lancashire coast and the port of Liverpool that he came across some unwanted bales of unusual wool.
Back in Bradford he experimented. There was potential here for a very soft, luxurious cloth if only he could overcome the technical challenges of weaving it. He succeeded, and alpaca became a 'must wear' fabric of the period.
Centuries earlier, in the Andes mountains, the wool of the alpaca had been reserved for royalty who valued its combination of softness and warmth without weight. Following the Spanish conquest, however, it was little heard for several centuries. Alpaca wool was ignored in the world away from the now impoverished mountain tribes.
Now, in the early twenty-first century, keeping alpacas has become quite popular in several areas of the world not only as professionally managed herds on substantial alpaca farms but also in smaller numbers as a hobby. One challenge is to maintain the high quality of wool. Breeding and selection of the animals, husbandry standards and nutrition and are all important factors. Skilled shearing, sorting and processing of the alpaca fleece to give consistent wool grade and colour is vital to achieving a luxury fabric.
The alpaca fleece varies widely in colour, with many different shades of grey and brown between the extremes of white and black. The character of alpaca wool also varies between breeds. The Suri fleece hangs in long strands like dreadlocks, while Huacaya wool is shorter and crimpy. In both cases the exceptionally soft wool of younger animals is highly prized.
The warmth of alpaca garments, even with little thickness and light weight is due to the air-filled hollows of the fibres. Unlike sheep, alpacas do not have lanolin in the fleece. The downside of this feature is lower water-resistance. However, although natural lanolin has many benefits it also constitutes an allergy problem for a proportion of the population, and another advantage of alpaca is that it can be worn safely and comfortably by many who cannot wear sheep wool.
As with the fleece from other animals such as sheep, the conversion of an alpaca fleece into usable alpaca yarn is a multi-stage process. Some hobbyists and cottage-industry enthusiasts like to work through the entire sequence themselves. Others prefer to take their fleeces to woollen mills where the carding and spinning can be done for them and the wool returned in a form suitable for knitting or weaving. Others again sell the fleeces either directly or through marketing cooperatives into the wool market; they do not themselves engage in garment production, preferring to concentrate on the animals and the production of the wool itself rather than its end products.
Keeping alpacas for their wool can be a rewarding experience, whether as a livestock business or as a hobby. This should, however, be taken on only after serious thought and careful study of the many different aspects of animal husbandry, wool processing and economics - not to mention the seven days a week non-stop commitment involved.
David Murray is joint-owner of BrunleaBooks.com and in recent years has developed an interest in the alpaca, having first come across them in a big way when the British national alpaca show was hosted by the local agricultural society near where he lives in Newark, England. He is currently building a web site about alpacas and alpaca products at: fine-alpaca.co.uk
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