Alpaca vs wool
Alpaca fiber is hollow-cored and smooth-scaled, which makes it warmer than wool for the same weight and gives it a silky hand and a soft sheen. It has no lanolin, so people who react to wool often wear alpaca comfortably — though "hypoallergenic" is a marketing word, and a coarse alpaca can still prickle. What it lacks is crimp. Wool springs back; alpaca drapes, and a garment knit in it grows in length with wear and does not recover. It is also heavier than wool per yard.
So alpaca is for things that are meant to hang — shawls, scarves, cowls, loose cardigans, slouchy hats — and alpaca-wool blends are for things that are meant to hold a shape.
Baby, suri and the rest
Baby alpaca is a grade of fineness, not the age of the animal: the finest fleece, around 22 microns, soft enough for a neck. Most of the 100% alpaca yarns we stock are baby alpaca. Royal is finer still and rare. Plain "alpaca" on a label is a coarser grade, fine for outerwear.
There are two breeds. Huacaya has a crimpy, dense fleece and makes most alpaca yarn; it looks and knits like a soft, drapey wool. Suri has long, silky, straight locks that spin into a yarn with real luster and even more drape, and brushed suri gives a halo like kid mohair without the itch. Blue Sky Fibers Brushed Suri, Suri Merino and Prairie are the suris on our shelves; Plymouth Suri Stratus is a suri lace with nylon.
Blends
A half-and-half alpaca and wool — Berroco Ultra Alpaca is the classic — is the all-rounder: wool's memory, alpaca's warmth and hand, at a price and a yardage that make a whole sweater sensible. It is the alpaca to knit a fitted cardigan or a ribbed hat in. Blue Sky Extra (baby alpaca and merino) and Suri Merino do the same with a softer hand; Plymouth Quaker Hill and Hearthstone at DK; Juniper Moon Moonshine Fine with silk and nylon for socks and shawls.
Alpaca with silk — Blue Sky Metalico, HiKoo Rylie — is for shine and drape in a shawl. Alpaca with linen — Plymouth Alpaca Lino — cools it for a spring cardigan.
What to knit, and what not to
Yes: shawls and wraps, scarves and cowls, slouchy or loose hats, drapey cardigans and swing coats, throws. Blankets in alpaca are heavy and warm and worth it.
With care: a pullover or fitted cardigan in 100% alpaca. Go down a needle size for a firmer fabric, add seams rather than knitting in one piece, keep the body short and expect an inch of growth. A blend is the easier road.
No: socks in 100% alpaca (no spring, no strength — choose a blend with nylon), heavy cabled sweaters (the cables stretch open), tight ribbed cuffs that need to stay tight.
Does it itch?
Baby alpaca against the neck does not, for most people, and it is the usual answer for someone who finds merino scratchy. Brushed suri can tickle the way mohair does, from the halo rather than the fiber. If you are buying for someone sensitive, Herriot or Plymouth Baby Alpaca Worsted are the safest picks on the shelf.
Care
Hand wash in cool water, press out the water in a towel, and dry flat — alpaca stretches badly if hung wet. Plymouth Baby Alpaca Worsted is the exception, labeled for a cold gentle machine cycle. Alpaca does not felt as readily as wool but it will mat with heat and agitation. Brushed and single-ply alpacas pill; a sweater comb keeps them tidy.
What we stock, by weight
- Lace: Blue Sky Prairie (suri and huacaya), Plymouth Suri Stratus.
- Fingering: HiKoo Madrona (sock blend), HiKoo Rylie (alpaca, silk, linen).
- DK and sport: Blue Sky Metalico and Brushed Suri, Plymouth Quaker Hill, Hearthstone and Tussah Kissed, Juniper Moon Moonshine Fine.
- Worsted: Juniper Moon Herriot (100% baby), Plymouth Baby Alpaca Worsted (100% baby, machine washable), Berroco Ultra Alpaca and Ultra Alpaca Natural, Blue Sky Extra and Suri Merino, HiKoo Concentric (a 100% baby alpaca gradient), Juniper Moon Iris, Plymouth Alpaca Lino, Noro Madara.
- Chunky: Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande (100% baby), Araucania Jaspeada.
The alpaca shelf has every line with alpaca in it. For yardage, remember alpaca is dense: a 100 g skein of Herriot is 218 yards where a worsted merino is 210, and a blend like Ultra Alpaca about the same, so the sweater yardage table applies unchanged.