The value of hand spinning

The hand spinners and knitters of Peru have been "fiber artists" for centuries. Drawing upon symbols and art forms inherent in Andean culture and tradition, they created magnificent alpaca products  long before a market for alpaca knits existed.

Advanced technologies have influenced the alpaca apparel market. High volume machine production yields greater profits for fiber producers, presenting buyers with a more uniform product at lower costs.  Other wools are mixed with alpaca to accommodate the requirements of manufacturing equipment designed originally for processing sheep's wool, a more coarse fiber.

Although machine production is often characterized by greater uniformity and precision, perceptive buyers continue to prefer the variation and creative expression which distinguishes "art form" from the manufactured product. . 

Discerning buyers emphasize aesthetics, artistic superiority and knitting integrity over volume, just as they prefer hand-thrown to manufactured pottery, or oil paintings to prints, or hand-woven oriental rugs to machine produced copies.