About

The Alpacas

Alpacas are members of the South American camelid family. Along with the bigger llamas, used as pack animals, alpacas were domesticated thousands of years ago by ancient Andean cultures, to produce a warm, soft and luxurious fibre.

The more common alpaca type, the huacaya, has soft, dense, crimpy fleece and a somewhat fluffy appearance, whilst the rarer suri has straighter fibre which hangs in silky locks. Alpacas come in a wide variety of colours, so that naturally coloured is available in pure white, through all shades of fawn, brown and grey, to a true, blue black, without the need to dye.

The People

Situated on Australia's southern coastline, at the heart of Victoria's spectacular Great Ocean Road, two alpaca studs specialise in breeding black alpaca with fine, lustrous, fleece. Lauris and Andrew Jephcott, and Liz and Russell Dawe are also passionate about promoting alpaca of all colours as a luxury fibre for top class clothing, textiles and fibre art. Their studs, Alpaca Marengo and Blaka Alpacas, have formed the basis for the development of knitalpaca luxury yarns. To find out more about our studs, visit www.blackalpacas.biz.

To meet some of our knitalpaca Partners, or to become a Partner, click here