Adorable Alpacas!

We meet some of the folks who’ve fallen for South America’s finest yarn animal.

- Judy Darley

Kerry Lord was eleven years old when her parents Rob and Shirley Bettinson founded TOFT Alpaca Stud in 1997 with four alpacas. Now a successful stud farm with around 150 alpacas, TOFT’s farm in Warwickshire has grown from six acres to 52.

While Kerry’s parents invested in genetics to ensure high quality breeding, Kerry began to wonder whether the fleece sheared off annually had a use. She launched TOFT Studio in 2006 and began selling alpaca yarn hats. At that point, many people had never heard of alpacas. “I remember someone saying, ‘An alpacino? Is that a bird?’” says Kerry. “When I showed them pictures, they’d say, ‘Oh, a pushmi-pullyu, like in Dr Doolittle!’”

Originating from South America, alpacas belong to a family known as camelids, along with their larger cousins llamas, and smaller, wild cousins, guanacos and vicunas. In the 1830s, Yorkshire textile miller Sir Titus Salt discovered that alpaca fleece produced a fine, hardwearing cloth. Queen Victoria became a fan, sealing the fibre’s popularity.

“You get between one and five kilos from each animal,” Kerry comments. “An alpaca is born with the finest fibre it will have, but gradually it coarsens.” There are exceptions, though. “We have a 16-year-old female who still produces top-grade fleece.”

The TOFT herd provides enough fleece to process into around 150 kilos of yarn annually. Kerry also takes in other people’s alpaca fleece for processing. “We have an alpaca yarn flash sale that sells out in 24 hours.”

Kerry adores crocheting with alpaca yarn. “It’s so lustrous and drapey,” she says. “The yarn looks and feels like silk but behaves like sheep’s wool.”

FINE FIBRE MATHEMATICS