With so many yarn suppliers out there, we’re often asked, “Why buy Alpaca With A Twist?” We think it’s a matter of selection, quality, and support! While it is not necessary to carry just one line of alpaca yarn, we believe we have some very different varieties that will make a huge splash in your store, as well as fit in with alpaca that may already be there.

As a specialty brand, we know alpaca better than anyone. We have a wide assortment of weights and blends appealing to many different kinds of knitting projects. Yet each type complements the others in terms of packaging, color story, and overall style. It’s what our design team refers to as “unity with variety.”

Color selection is one of our biggest advantages. We don’t think an endless number of color choices is necessarily a good thing, so we put extra effort into selecting a manageable number of shades that we know will look great together. It’s our specialty niche along with this unified shelf appeal that draws your customers in to our story and makes them purchase our brand.

To understand our quality difference, it’s important to understand how alpaca fiber is graded. Shorn fleeces must be hand-sorted to separate the finest and softest fibers (to be worn next to the skin) from the coarsest (to make rugs and ropes). The diameter of a fiber, called a micron, determines how fleece is graded:

Royal Baby	Under 20 microns
Baby	20-23 microns
Super Fine	23-27 microns
Adult	27-30 microns
Coarse	Above 30 microns

While young alpacas tend to have the finest fiber and get coarser as they grow up, some adults maintain ”baby” fineness. So the name refers to the grade of fiber, not necessarily the age of the animal. The finer and softer the grade, the more expensive the cost.

The premium grades of Baby Alpaca and Royal Baby Alpaca are usually labeled using their full name due to their higher value. Royal Baby is very scarce and its' extreme cost makes it very difficult to supply commercially.

Super Fine is typically the coarsest grade used against the skin for garments. Its' lower cost means it’s the most common grade found in the hand-knitting market, especially when blended with other types of fibers. Super Fine is often labeled as just “Alpaca.”

Although it costs a little more, we use Baby Alpaca in the majority of our yarns because it offers a superior handfeel and our customers appreciate the step up in quality. In spite of this added quality, our prices are still competitive with lower quality yarns!

Finally, our dedication to our customers also makes us unique. Just like most of you, we’re a small specialty business, too. We work hard to make you successful by offering special teaching aids, customer giveaways, and marketing ideas to help our yarn fly off your shelves. Ask us about our latest promotion – we’re always working on something new!