All Year Round Fashion

Some people might think that it’s a crazy idea to use a woolen fabric all year round. However, if you do a little research, you will be amazed to know that Alpaca wool has many special properties which no other wool possesses. Alpaca fiber is a weather-friendly fabric which is naturally equipped with microscopic air sockets which provide insulation in winters and its breathable texture keeps your body cool in summers. So, if you’re planning to stack your wardrobe with some fancy pieces which can you sport round the year, get yourself an Alpaca dress.

Alpaca Dresses

Due to the rising demand of Alpaca garments, having an Alpaca dress has become a status symbol for many high-end customers. Because it is exceptionally light weight, it can be worn easily without having to carry extra weight attached to your body. The alpaca clothing stores are filled with women’s dresses which are sure to make you standout in a crowd. From vintage inspired pieces to modern coats and jackets, you can select from a vast collection of dresses as per your preferences and style. Create your own style by complementing your dress with a hand-embellished Alpaca scarf or a glittery neck piece. Alpaca clothing is wearable art – get creative by trying new combinations.

An Alpaca dress is sure to gain everyone’s attention wherever you go.

Fashion Ramp’s New Attraction

Recently, the fashion world’s legend, Calvin Klein, showcased his collection of modern dresses made of Alpaca fiber. It consisted of ready-to-wear lines which are meant to be worn all year long. Other designer’s collections included luxurious Alpaca sweaters and versatile accessories which offered a delicate look for everyday and special events. The meticulously handcrafted coats that were made of the finest grade of baby alpaca wool were not only eye catching, but also dramatically bold.

Special Care

To ensure its durability and fineness, this delicate fabric needs to be handled very carefully. It should be hand washed using mild detergents or shampoos. If your machine is equipped with a wool wash option, you may also machine wash it. Always use cool water as hot water may damage its yarn. Avoid twisting it or spinning it in a dryer. Drying you Alpaca dress in a dryer may deform the shape or shrink its size. Please refrain from bleaching or using other harsh chemicals.

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Alpaca fiber is famous for its exceptional softness and its beautiful sheen. This is a luxury fabric and it is gaining popularity by the day because it is hand knitted, beautiful, warmer and softer than normal wool and more long lasting. Peru has best makers of hand knitted Alpaca garments. This place also hosts the largest herds of Alpacas in the world.

So the question is why are Alpaca sweaters so expensive? Alpaca breeding is a slow process that takes an entire year, when the ‘fabric’ of the sweater is growing slowly, inch by inch on their body. The fiber of this garment does not decompose like other woolen fabrics and the sweater will last for generations. Really, it will. This sweater will also be always soft and cozy. These garments are an investment and they will pay off for a long time. So seriously decide what you can live with for the rest of your life before you pay that much dough for the nice looking sweater you just bought.

How to decide which alpaca garment is good? The one, unconditional sign of a good alpaca sweater is that they will be soft to touch. If the fiber is fuzzy or fluffy than it is made of poor quality Alpaca fiber or it is not hundred percent pure Alpaca fiber. They are mixed with Merino wool or acrylic. A good quality Alpaca fiber is like sleek human hair to the touch. It is incredibly smooth, soft and sleek with a shine and sheen that is responsible for its elegant look.

These garments do not itch either. The itch in wool comes from a material called lanolin that is present in regular natural wool but is lacking in Alpaca fiber. That is why the substance is not itchy. If an Alpaca wool sweater itches even a little bit than you are not looking at a hundred percent pure Alpaca fiber sweater.

Alpaca sweaters are expensive for all the right reasons. From breeding to production to hand knitting, the extra money is going to another common man. So if your Alpaca sweater is cheap, it is probably not Alpaca. A real Alpaca sweater distributor cannot afford to sell his goods on a lower price. The only place where a lower price for Alpaca is legit is the villages in high Andes Mountains as there the animal is very abundant.

Do you like Alpaca capes in winter? Who doesn’t? It provides sheen and a style to all stuffy clothes and sweaters and warm clothes that cover our entire existence. Making a cape is fun, simple and very cool. These capes can be used for fashion design as well as costume making. This design has been in use for ages to keep a person warm and is considered a status symbol by some cultures. They are a part of cultures all across the world, from Russian folklore of Red Riding Hood to modern tales of crime and punishment in the Batman and Superman series.

The first method for making capes is simple and requires items that are readily available at home. These Alpaca capes are called Over- Throw Capes or ponchos. This cape is open from both sides and spreads on your shoulders.

Instructions:

• Take out a blanket, sheet or any other suitable fabric. This fabric needs to be large enough to go over the shoulders of the wearer and cover the torso and upper body of the person.
• Now cut this cloth into a rectangular or square shape. Rectangular shape offers more room and more space. To avoid fraying, stitch it from all sides.
• Now fold the piece of cloth into half, find the focal point at the top of the folded cloth. This is where you will make a circle for the head to come out.
• Now cut the head and neck hole. This step can be taken in two ways; using a fabric marker, draw a half circle into the focal point. Now cut out the half circle but as you are cutting the two sides, it will cut out as a full circle. A simpler way is to simply slit through the center across the fabric.
• Again, to prevent fraying, stitch around the circle. You can use simple stitching styles like blanket stitch and others. If you want to decorate the center edge, use a fancy stitch like a braid around the whole.

This Alpaca cape is usable in all kinds of ways; you can use it as a fashion trend or when the weather is mildly cold. Or you can use it at a Native American themed party to claim your rightful role as an elder. This can be used to make medieval tunics as well by simply adding a belt and making sleeves.

We have gathered some important information about Alpaca fiber that is turned into Alpaca yarn in this blog that we would love to share:

Alpaca Fiber Terms

Some regular terms that a person comes across while handling Alpaca fiber are as follows;

Raw- This fiber is right from the animal. There is no washing, dirt cleaning or any other sanitization done to the material.

Picked- This means that the fiber has been manually picked by human labor and grass and other material has been removed. But it’s not possible to pick out all the vegetable matter. This fact should be kept in consideration.

Staple- The length of a fiber is called staple. This length determines the comfort a craftsman will have in working with the fiber.

Crimp- when a fiber is kinking, it’s called crimp. The usual myth says that more kinking a fiber is, softer the material will be.

Carded- When the fiber has been combed with hand or machine and each individual fiber has been aligned, the processed material is called carded. This process creates batts or roves. These roves and batts are now ready to be spun and felted.

Cria- Cria is a baby Alpaca and Cria fleece s first done when the baby is one year old.

Opened Fleece- When the fiber has been fluffed and separated as to make room for cleaning and preparing for carding is sometimes called as picked.

Blanket- The fiber picked from the thickest and rich areas of the animal are called blankets. These areas are behind the neck and front of the hind quarters. The fiber that is taken from legs, back quarters and neck area is called ‘seconds’ and is also a good quality fiber to be turned into Alpaca yarn.

How to Wash Your Fiber;

Some people do not like to wash their fiber before using it, yet I wash my fiber because that gives it a clean outlook. The process for this is as follows;

• Collect the fiber in lingerie bags and use detergent for cleaning.
• Fill the washing machine with hot water, add soap and dip the bags filled with fiber, up and down the water. Let the bags soak in hot water for half an hour and then put the washer on spin. Spin out the fiber and avoid letting it rub against anything as it will shrink or felt the fiber. Now rinse with water as many times as necessary.
• Spread the fiber in open air to dry it and dry it thoroughly before storing it again.

We hope that these tips and terms help you in handling your Alpaca fiber better. And you make great Alpaca yarn from the cleaned fiber.

Alpaca sweater is coming more and more in fashion. This material is soft, fancy and much warmer than any other material. Alpaca clothing stores are opening all across the globe and fashion designers from US, Asia and Europe are becoming more and more attracted to using this material in their winter collection and designs. As Alpaca fiber is imported from Peru, the discovery of this fiber has also shed some light on Peruvian culture and clothing style. Peruvian apparel is becoming all the more desirable and attractive to the international fashionistas.

Alpaca and Peruvian Trends

Many of Peruvian clothing trends revolve around Alpaca fiber anyhow as alpaca stocks are a naturally occurring phenomenon of the region. Many areas of this region utilize Alpaca fiber for their clothing needs as well as aspirations as this fiber is abundantly available to the local cloth makers. But as the warmth, strength, lightness and hypoallergenic nature of the material makes it more attractive to the international market, the international fashion gurus look to the first designers of Alpaca clothing, the Peruvians.

This wool is available naturally in a very long range of colors and shades. Consequently, the same range of colors dominates the Peruvian fashion sense and clothing combinations. Many fashion designers take these designs and color combinations to create their own seasonal collection of Alpaca wear.

This material is also famous in traditional Peruvian clothing because the material of these clothes is light and warm, so that an Alpaca sweater feels very light and warm to the skin unlike regular woolen sweaters that are heavy and stuffy. When wearing a normal woolen sweater an entire day, a person may feel hot, sticky and stuffy but an Alpaca sweater will always feel light. But it will be either as much warm or even warmer than any other usual cotton sweater.

Alpaca- The Animal

The Alpacas are relatives of camels, as their physical appearance clearly shows. These creatures have lived in Andes for thousands of years and eventually adapted to the harsh and extreme weathers, rough mountains, strong climate and all other rough patches that these mountains have to offer. This wool is not only durable and water resistant but softer than a sheep’s wool as well. This wool is used in making of garments ranging from jackets to blankets to sweaters. Alpaca is unique in a sense that it holds warmth in it even when it is wet. As it is made out of a natural and renewable resource, it is also gentle to the ecosystem.

These clothes are a must try and a definite buy. We would surely encourage you to take a Peruvian turn in style and try something Alpaca.