My new limited edition, custom spun, yarn will launch this week. I’ve been working on this project for over a year now.
The Yarn
Is 100% British, the fleeces come from Shropshire and Somerset, and were scoured, prepared and spun by the Natural Fibre Company down in Cornwall. Once back in the Yorkshire, the finished yarn has been dyed by me using natural dyes. It will be available in six hand dyed colours, as well as in it’s natural state.
The story so far
The yarn has a 70/30 split of two British Breeds of fleece, I’ll tell you more about them later in the week. The bulk of the fleeces come from a good friend’s flock down in Shropshire. Having been at university together I’ve known the flock in passing for quite a while, I wasn’t knitting then like I do know, so I never dreamt I’d be asking for some fleeces to be spun into yarn! But, I broached the subject back in December 2015 and the response was an enthusiastic yes. The flock was clipped in May 2016 and we went down to visit in July 2016 to collect some fleeces from the shearling ewes. It was a hot day, in a black car, with two large bags of raw fleeces, but luckily there was only the faintest whiff of sheep!
I then hand sorted the fleeces to remove the muckiest bits and any guard hairs or coarse fibres.
Finally it was bagged back up and sent off to the Natural Fibre Company for processing. The post man was slightly bemused when I asked to take a picture of the bags next to the van. I assured him it wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, I just wanted to record the occasion for posterity!!
The finished yarn finally came back to me in January, and I’ve been test knitting it and dyeing it ready for release. I’ll be releasing it in batches, just to keep things manageable for me. The first batch will be released on Thursday 11 May, sign up to the newsletter (over there on the right hand side) to be first to hear when batches are released.
Check back later in the week for more details of the yarn itself.
