The alpaca sweater guy

This morning at the coffee shop I stopped at the table of a complete stranger to compliment him on his sweater. It was cream colored with a design in brown of stylized llama-type animals. He thanked me and said the animals in the design were alpacas, and that it was made from alpaca wool (hair?). His in-laws had brought it back from Peru.

I hope he loves it. The tensile strength of alpaca hair is 300% more than sheep wool, it will never pill or ball or wear thin. There are 3.5 million alpaca in Peru and the shades of hair naturally come in 22 colors, but it is easily dyed. There are numerous websites selling sweaters and garments--and they look quite reasonable to me, considering their beautify and wear-worthiness. The image and this information is from Hallet Handknits of California.