Alpaca Yarns NZ

Alpaca Yarns began as a holiday. Jan was in Peru, walked through one of the world's great alpaca mills – Arequipa is where a huge share of the country's alpaca is combed and spun – and came home unable to let it go. There was a gap on the shelves here, and nobody was filling it.

So she took a considerable risk: her own first collection, spun entirely at that mill. That was about a decade ago. It's many ranges deep now, still run out of New Zealand, and still by Jan.

She flies over to see us two or three times a year, and we chat about where the gaps are – the yarn people keep asking for that nobody's making. If she thinks it can be done, she has it made. That's how a machine-washable alpaca comes to exist, which isn't something you can say about most alpaca.