This could be the simplest but most important item in your wardrobe. A pure alpaca wool blanket or throw.
Sleep in it, or wear it in a pinch – it will keep you surprisingly warm. Invest in a few and you’ll never be cold (so long as you keep them close).
Ideal for outdoors
Wool blankets are a popular traditional outdoor camping & survival accessory, not only for their thermal value but for being hydrophobic and anti-microbial too. They’re anti-microbial, so insects are reluctant to crawl on them and fungus is reluctant to grow on them; and they’re hydrophobic, so light splashes of water tend to run off without soaking in.
Baby Alpaca Throws by So Cosy
The best pure undyed alpaca wool blankets we’ve found are currently sold by So Cosy in brown and grey. They’re quite finely woven from a very soft, non-pilling baby alpaca fabric.
They’re a bit small at 130x200cm but it’s worth noting that their white-bordered options are slightly bigger than their tasselled options because the tassels are counted as part of the size. That being said, their tasselled range is currently more extensive so you may be tempted, for example, by their beautiful undyed natural black throw.
Merino wool bedspreads
So Cosy also do a much larger bedspread in extra-fine merino wool. It’s almost as soft as the baby alpaca, but has a looser weave and has a tendency to bobble with use. You may wish to run it through a warm wash in order to shrink and felt it for a smaller, denser layer but this will also damage it, making it more prone to linting.
The baby alpaca throws are simply a superior fabric – they have a finer weave, they don’t bobble up and they provide greater thermal value for their weight. But if you just need a large (albeit thin) wool blanket, their merino bedspread is an option.
Merino is typically softer than regular wool, and So Cosy’s extra-fine merino bedspread is infinitely softer and finer-weaved than Bushcraft Spain’s king-size merino blanket for example (stay away from that bundle of thorns).
Royal Alpaca Blankets by Arms of Andes – coming soon
There are plans in the pipeline for Arms of Andes to make their own blankets using their legendary royal alpaca fabrics. When these are released, so long as they’re not too small, they will probably be the best blankets on the market by a long way. Meli & Rensso if you’re listening, please offer them undyed (else plant-dyed), in proper bedding blanket sizes (larger than throws).