How It's Made: Alpaca Yarn and Knits

Selectively breeding alpacas for the best wool, color, and health of the animals is the first step in the journey to luxe alpaca fiber. 

White alpacas are prized because their wool can be dyed in any color. But the animals also come in natural shades of brown, black, grey and beige.  In Peru, 24 natural alpaca fiber colors have been identified. Some alpaca-raising communities specialize in certain colors. In Apahua, their specialty is white alpacas. 

Healthy, happy alpacas make for the softest wool.  Heifer project participant María Humbelina Miñarcaja learned about their special requirements, like, "How to cut their hooves, and they have teeth that get to long, so you have to file them down so that they can eat conveniently.  We give them vitamins, purge them of parasites. Those are some of the things I learned." 

Alpacas are only sheared once a year, so it is key for the fiber artisan to make the absolute most of every shearing.  The shorn fiber can be sorted into seven categories, from the finest to coarsest. The finest, softest classes are used for garments, and coarser wool is made into handicrafts and felted jewelry. 

After the fiber is sorted by category, burs, seeds and other detritus the animals have picked up are carded with a fine-toothed brush or cut out by hand.  Once picked clean, the fiber is washed and dried.  If a batch of wool is going to be dyed, it happens at this point. 

 "I learned to wash the yarn - that was the last workshop," said Miñarcaja. "I washed it and I dyed it with natural plants." Miñarcaja and the other artisans in the Heifer project use natural dyes to color their fiber, like ñachak, a yellow flower that makes a deep blue dye, nettle for green, yucca for yellow, cochineal insects for red and blackberries for pink.

 

Hand-spinning wool into yarn is an ancient and highly skilled craft, dating back to the Paleolithic era.  Spinners gather their fiber on the top of a short staff, or "distaff."  The fiber is then gathered and twisted in one hand while being wound onto a spindle with the other hand.  It takes a steady and experienced hand to twist the fiber enough to make yarn without breaking it and keeping the thickness consistent for hundreds of meters. 

The art of hand-spinning was starting to die out in this region of Ecuador.  Old women still remember the technique, but younger generations weren't picking it up.  Trainings that pass this skill from local artisans to young people is part of this Heifer project. 

Maria Micaela Castro Sisa is a master spinner who is teaching others to follow in her footsteps.  "These two fingers," she said, holding out her thumb and forefinger," and then I can feel the thickness that's coming out.  This hand knows how to feel how thick it is." 

Castro and the other women in the project are able to do this skilled work while walking around, tending to animals, household chores and other business. 

Spinning, along with knitting, crochet and weaving, are all traditions of indigenous peoples.  In the face of modern poverty and migration, these arts are being forgotten.  The Andean communities that Heifer works with are making sure older members of the community share these traditions with the next generation.