Is the yarn Australian made?

We are 100% Australian. The input fibre is grown in Australia. All parts of the process of manufacturing our yarn is done at our premises in Orange, NSW and our company is Australian family owned. We are also licensed to carry the Australian made logo and the Guaranteed Australian Alpaca Fibre logo from the Australian Alpaca Association and they are displayed on our labels.

Who is Adagio Mills?

Adagio Mills is a family business owned by Andrew and Nadine Hulme. We are a small team with currently 4 employees. We strongly believe that local manufacturing is possible and need to grow to be sustainable and to support local employment and farmers.

Adagio Mills commenced production in 2015. We love sharing our journey with you so please check out our facebook, instagram, our website or Nadine's blog for more information about us, news and our start-up journey.

We strongly believe in sustainable manufacturing and farming. We achieve this by having a personal relationship with our fibre growers and witnessing best practice in their farming methods, we process from raw fibre to knitted garment all on our own premises which gives us the ability to assure that our employees safety is a priority and good working conditions are provided, we use a biodegradable, low foaming surfactant (soap) and recycle wherever possible. We minimise our energy use and our impact on the environment. We also blend all of our colours from the natural shades of the alpaca fibres themselves thereby reducing the use and exposure of chemicals to our team and the environment.

Why is there vegetable matter in the yarn?

Whilst every effort is made in removing vegetable matter (VM), we do not have a carbonising process so there will be a small amount of VM left in the final product. Ultimately this is a good thing as we are not using the acids required by the carbonising process and is part of our care for the environment.

Do you use any dyes?

All of our colours are blended from natural alpaca fleece. Adagio Mills does not use any dyes.

We recommend that you knit with our yarns in a similar manner as you would for hand dyed yarns. As all colours are blended from natural alpaca fleece there may be small colour variations even within a batch. If this is a concern for your project then we would recommend to knit alternative rows from different balls of yarn. 

What are the natural colours available?

We are able to produce any colour between white and black through the grey or brown scales! Many of the colours involving browns are seasonal and have a little variation in them. The grey gradient we blend from specific recipes of white and black fibre so we are able to reproduce them with great accuracy batch to batch. Here is an image of the main colours of the grey gradient. 

Is it possible to match yarn from different batches?

Each batch of yarn progresses through our mill as a separate entity so there will be small variations in colour and yarn weight between batches. We recommend that you purchase all of the yarn that you need for a project from one batch as no two batches will be exactly the same colour.

What are the care instructions for the yarn?

Hand wash in warm water only. Lay garment flat to dry. Alpaca fibre felts! So do not machine wash, do not tumble dry and do not use water hotter than you would comfortably feel with your hands.

Shipping information

We are currently using Australia Post and Fastway for shipping.

We will dispatch your yarn order in the next business day whenever possible.

We will ship your garment as quickly as possible, next business day whenever possible, however since we are building up our stock levels of our garments some may be made to order so please allow 3-5 business days for your garment to ship.

If your order is urgent, please let us know! We are located in Orange NSW so shipping times will depend on Australia Post's delivery terms from our location to yours.

Australia wide shipping rates

• Standard shipping flat rate $8.00,
• Free standard shipping for orders over $45,

International shipping rates

• Standard shipping flat rate $15.00.
• Free shipping for orders over $200,

Please contact us for more detailed shipping information.

Returns

We only accept returns where there is a fault with the product. If you are unhappy with your purchase for any reason, please contact us to discuss. 

What does Adagio mean and why Adagio Mills?

Andrew and Nadine met playing music in various concert bands in Sydney and at the time Andrew was a professional conductor and trumpet player. Music has always been a very key part of our relationship and lives. So when we moved to Orange and bought our small farm we called it Adagio which is an Italian musical term which means "restful; at ease" and is referring to a tempo or speed of music. Adagio was how our property made us feel, see the pictures on our blog and you will see why! So when we decided to stock alpacas our breeder name became Adagio Alpacas and it made sense to continue the theme with our mill, Adagio Mills. We have registered the trading names Adagio Mills and Adagio Alpaca Mills. 

How do you pronounce Adagio?

If you are unfamiliar with the musical term it can be hard to pronouce or describe. The best approximation we have is Aa-daa-ji-o. Hope that helps!

Is everything in your online store Australian made?

We are doing our very best to stock Australian made whenever possible. The only items not Australian made are the circular knitting needles and Unicorn products. We have been unable to source Australian made circular knitting needles so have decided to stock the German made Addi click system. We use Unicorn products in our process and by popular demand have be able to make this product available to our customers as well.