FIBRES

The fibres we stock comes from our own and two local flocks and from John Arbon Textiles.  In addition, we are delighted to stock fibre made from recycled wool.

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We have  Leicester Longwool locks in their natural form (white face and black face) and hand dyed in a range of colours. 

 

In terms of rovings, these have been commercially prepared for us. Rovings are produced through carding washed fleece. Carding results in  the wool fibres lying in a mostly parallel direction, but the fibers are not all uniform in length and the  process creates a fuzzier, loftier, and more matte texture than combed wool.  The Zwartble X and white Ryeland X rovings are made from fleeces from a local mixed flock of sheep.  The blackface and white Leicester Longwool rovings comes from our own flock. As these have been commercially carded rather than combed we treat them as rovings though they do have a lustre and given the length of the staple, they are lovely for worsted spinning.  And we have light and darker coloured Ryeland rovings from a Ryeland flock.

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Our recycled wool fibre come from a mill in Yorkshire and are super soft with a long staple length.

 

In addition we are delighted to stock tops prepared and blended at John Arbon Textiles.   Wool top is achieved by processing the fibre after carding. Any short staples of the wool are all removed and the fibres are thoroughly combed and aligned in the same direction. This results in a smoother, more consistent texture of mostly equal length.  Wool top is denser than roving because the combing process gets rid of trapped air between the fibres, which also makes it look smoother and shinier.

They are made from breed specific sheep fibre, locally farmed whenever possible.

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