Back in stock: Ultra Alpaca and Ultra Alpaca Fine.

These mighty big boxes arrived from Berroco last week, with over 30 pounds of Ultra Alpaca yarns in each one. New colors made up some of the weight, as did some old favorites; the rest was a new yarn entirely, but that’s for another post. The unpacking, sorting, storing, and displaying took Anne and I most of a day!

Good old Ultra Alpaca. This 50%/50% blend of wool and alpaca is a classic, with the structure and elasticity of wool and the drape, halo, and softness of alpaca.

It comes in reasonably-priced, 100 gram hanks with 219 yards each; enough yarn to make a small scarf, a hat, or a pair of mittens. Ultra Alpaca comes in a wide range of colors, from fun brights to classic neutrals; I’ve always particularly admired the heathered shades.

Ultra Alpaca is a great sweater yarn, too, as Mindy here can attest. A bit of show and tell: Mindy came in the other day, having heard about our big Berroco shipment, to show off her very first sweater, knit during a “Start Your First Sweater” class here at the shop. She used Ultra Alpaca in a heathered charcoal and a friendly top-down seamless cardigan pattern from our pattern binder. Look at the fabulous result!

We also got new colors in Ultra Alpaca Fine, a fingering weight blend of wool, alpaca, and nylon. Its fiber content and gauge suggest socks, but Ultra Alpaca Fine is equally at home in larger garments, and especially shines in openwork scarves and shawls.

The alpaca content gives it a bit of a fuzzy halo, something to keep in mind if you’re planning a project that requires sharp stitch definition–those fuzzy fibers can obscure delicate texture patterns a bit. That said, those fuzzy fibers also give the finished fabric softness and warmth. 

Come by the shop to see all the new colors in Berroco Ultra Alpaca and Ultra Alpaca Fine, and keep them in mind for sweater, sock, and shawl-making this fall. Stay tuned for the newest Berroco yarn, or come by the shop to see it before it hits the blog!