Knitting Project Kits and Alpaca Yarns for Ethical Knitting
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 07. 6.08
Your fingers will itch for a pair of needles when you see the luxurious, stylish and ethical knitting yarns and craft kits from The Toft Alpaca Shop. A peek at The Toft Alpaca Shop's introduction information immediately convinces one that Toft is committed to sustainable and ethical best practices across the entire product line and all production processes. For example:
- Alpaca wool is harvested from the flock at the Toft site or purchased from farms within 50 miles of the point of sale.
- All hand-knitted finished products are crafted by knitters working from home in the surrounding areas -- Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire-- or are imported from Peru under a verified fair trade scheme.
- Machine-knit socks are sustainably powered by water at Coldharbour Watermill, Devon, dedicated to environmentally-friendly textile production.
- Toft is a family-run business, including the dedicated efforts of three generations of the Bettinson family.
Ethical Knitting with Alpaca Wool
According to Toft, Alpaca yarns are:
- Luxurious - Soft and Silky to the touch, with no 'itch factor';
- Lightweight- Hollow core to the fibre means alpaca is light to wear;
- Warm- Hollow core makes alpaca a fantastic insulator;
- Durable - less inclined to 'pill' due to long staple length;
- Washable - alpaca can be handwashed and then dried flat;
- Colourful- natural alpaca comes in 22 natural colours from cream through to black, but if brighter colours are required it also absorbs dye incredibly well to give radiant colours.
The Toft Alpaca yarns are locally spun and available in 2ply, 4ply, Double Knit and Aran weights. The colour spectrum, from black through to white with a myriad of browns and greys in between, occurs naturally. Knitting Kits princes range from £15 to £50 ($30 to $100) and yarn prices range from £5.95 to £8 ($11.80 to $15.85) per 100 gram ball.
All Toft Alpaca knitting kits come with the necessary yarn, a comprehensive pattern, wooden needles and any additional accessories (stuffing, buttons etc.) Patterns and packaging are all 100% recycled materials and needles are crafted from sustainably farmed birch.
Fair Trade Alpaca Cardigan Sweater
If you are less crafty, but still covetous of a soft, warm, ethical alpaca sweater, check out the range of finished products available. This stylish cardigan with tapered waist and crocheted scalloping is made in Peru and imported as fair trade clothing under a verified fair trade scheme.
Ethical Knitting Kits and knit products are the perfect gift: is it too soon to start making a Christmas list?
More Knitting in TreeHugger:
Book Review: The Natural Knitter
Knit a Ferrari
Knit a River
Knit a Swiffer
Knit in Public Day
Extreme Knitting
I suppose if you are going to take the time to knit your own socks, it would be foolish to use anything else. I would think this also might lure the retired knitter out of their maddness-inducing high powered corporate professional life and take time for something more tangible than filling filing cabinets with shuffled papers.
I hope articles like these increase to help awareness of all things ethical, natural and beautiful. We don't need synthetics just as we didn't hundreds of years ago.
Great site and product.
I wish I would find out where to buy yarn only, and made my own designs...
==auth note==
This supplier does sell yarn only.