A women's cardigan in lovely chunky knit baby alpaca for extra warmth this winter. The yarn is in a lovely natural rock colour with subtle changes in tone throughout. Finished with wooden buttons.

• 100% baby alpaca wool

This is ethically made from 100% baby Alpaca fibre. This fine alpaca wool is allergy-friendly, with soft, light and strong lanolin-free fibres. The knitting is done in a traditional Bolivian manner, hand-made in knitting groups with the children around them.

The Alpaca is a mammal that lives in high altitudes in South America and has a wonderful fleece that keeps it comfortable at a wide range of temperatures. Alpacas are seasonally shorn of their fleece which is combed and cleaned and made into these gorgeous clothes.

Baby Alpaca is a very fine grade of alpaca fibre, often from the belly of grown-up alpacas, not necessarily from actual baby alpacas. It's around 19-21 micron in diameter.

Alpaca clothing has heaps of benefits for your child and family as it is actually superior to Merino wool in a number of ways!

• Warmth. Alpaca fleece is unique in that it consists of hollow cells. It demonstrates perfect thermoregulatory properties: alpaca fibre is ideal in cold weather conditions, and protects the child’s body from overheating when it is warm. It is much lighter than wool for the same warmth.
• Moisture resistance. Alpaca wool is naturally breathable and does not retain moisture, but allows perspiration to evaporate.
• Softness. Baby alpaca is super-soft, in the category of luxurious fibres such as cashmere. It's suitable for people with sensitivity to wool as it is smoother and usually finer..
• Lightweight. It's easy to be warm and free to move freely with lightweight alpaca.
• Durability. The Alpaca fibre is soft, smooth, elastic and strong! It doesn't felt as quickly as wool and is more durable, making high quality fabric that lasts and lasts and lasts, not just for one or two children but many.
• Eco-friendly. Alpaca has an entirely natural origin and requires very little processing.
• Stain resistant. Alpaca is naturally stain resistant which means you won’t have to wash it as often. As with wool, simply hang to air instead.

To look after your pure Alpaca clothing is simple. Alpaca is resistant to dirt and releases it easily, so after wearing, simply hang to air. There will be no need to wash it very often at all.

If you need to wash it hand wash in cold water that is less than 10oc. Use a detergent designed for wool which protects and replenishes wool's natural oils as sold in our fabric care category here. Dilute your wool detergent in a bowl of cold water. Add your woollens to the bowl, gently stirring and squeezing the detergent through. Rinse using cold water.

To dry, gently squeeze water out and wrap your wool clothes in a towel to remove the excess water. Air-dry naturally avoiding direct heat. So, hanging on a drying rack over the bath is good, or on a clothes horse.

In Serendipity Organics we bring you the loveliest Danish children's clothing with the loveliest values.

"Our clothes are styled according to our Scandinavian design heritage with clean lines and functional, simple features."

Serendipity uses the softest, yarn-dyed organic cotton melange and fine alpaca and llama wool. Their GOTS cotton is manufactured in Fair Trade SA8000 certified factories and this guarantees our shared values of social and environmental sustainability are upheld throughout the supply chain.

All Serendipity's dyes are GOTS-certified, free from AZO colours, heavy metals and formaldehydes, as well as no use of optical bleaching or chlorine.

The buttons used are all based on natural materials such as mother of pearl, tagua nut, seashell or coconut. Poppers and zippers are nickel free.