| |  | | | | | | Countless hours—and often a lifetime of experience—go into the creation of our luxury fiber, art-knit garments. Only a handful of knitters in the world have the skill to transform the intricate and original designs we come up with into the exquisite wearable art that you see on our website and in our catalogs. Ancient Andean Textile Tradition
The Andean knitters who knit our designs are lifelong artisans, who, like their mothers and grandmothers before them, are immersed in an ancient Andean textile tradition. Unlike factory or even cottage industry employment, hand knitting blends in beautifully with daily life in the Andes. Skilled hand knitters can earn an income as they travel on a train or bus, sell in the marketplace, take a break from harvesting a crop, or watch over their children at home. As such, hand knitting helps women to remain in their native villages, giving them access to cash needed for children's school books, batteries and medicine. As such, hand knitting is not only an art form in the Andes, it contributes to the preservation of native culture. A brilliant collaboration between these skilled knitters in Peru and our in-house designers, the first prototypes are developed in our collection colors. Once the initial design concepts are refined, it takes a knitter several weeks to finish just one of the more elaborate designs. It's magical to watch these virtuosos as they work—sometimes managing four different stitches at a time, keeping track of a multitude of yarn hues and tweeds streaming down in tiny bobbins. The knitters knit on fine-gauge needles, changing colors and stitches several times each row. Some of our sweaters use dozens of colors (one best seller had over 70), which is virtually unheard of in this age of mass-produced garments.
 Once the knitting is complete, there are literally hundreds of strands of yarn dangling inside of the garment that must be worked back into the fabric or carefully tied off, a daunting task for expert finishers. It too is an extremely laborious process, but it ensures the durability and lifelong enjoyment of these heirloom garments. Our designers and knitters put their hearts and souls into each sweater, from the first dab of color on paper to the final tying off of each strand of precious alpaca or Peruvian pima cotton. The superbly talented artisans who knit our art knits have taken their craft to a true art form. Preserving a Cultural Tradition
For over thirty years, we've been privileged to help support this small but important art knitting industry in the Andes. And when you make a selection from our catalog, not only are you choosing a beautiful piece of clothing, you are helping to preserve a remarkable and ancient cultural tradition. 
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