Buying some fabric

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richarda

New Member
May 21, 2021
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0
43
canada
Hello, does anyone know where i can buy some tightly woven alpaca fabric i want to make my own sweater all the sweater sold at the store are low quality
 

Woody girl

Full Member
Mar 31, 2018
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3,460
65
Exmoor
I've no idea about woven alpaca fabric, sweaters are knitted rather than made from a piece of material.
I have a friend who owns alpacas and spins her wool. I use it to make sweaters socks and other items. Its not cheap, but its cheaper than commercial available pure alpaca wool at £10 for a 100g ball. If you are interested in a hand knitted sweater she is very reasonable price wise. Or you could buy the wool, and get someone you know to knit one up for you.
Its top quality hand spun hand dyed pure alpaca wool.
 

C_Claycomb

Moderator staff
Mod
Oct 6, 2003
7,355
2,366
Bedfordshire
Richarda,
Welcome to the forum.

As Woody Girl says, sweaters are knit, not woven, and their function is to trap warm air, which is done with a loose structure. Tightly woven wool, as used in whipcord trousers, can be sewn into a garments, but isn't going to hang the way a sweater would. Maybe make a shirt, like Swandri or Filson. Strange to ask for sources on a UK forum when you are in Canada and usually have much better access to fabrics than we do in the UK.

I have merino wool knit "sweaters" by Aclima that are certainly not low quality, some have been worn almost daily for years. There are other makes of quality wool insulation layers, and if you are willing to import the fabric, I would recommend looking at just importing a finished sweater.

Unless you know what you are doing, buying fabric (expensive and hard to source fabric) and hoping to make a better/cheaper garment than you can buy from somewhere is usually optimistic and unlikely to be cost effective. My mum knows how to sew clothes, and I asked her to re-purpose a Swandri Mossgiel into a jacket and wished I had not. She had a really hard time, and she had been making clothes, including wool re-enactment dresses, for over 40 years.

A little more info about you and what you want this garment to do would help :)

Chris
 

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