Marie Wallin - British Breeds Yarn

British Breeds is a worsted-spun fingering weight yarn spun in Devon by John Arbon and his wonderful team. It took a long time to finalize the colour palette as Marie Wallin wanted to be sure that all of the colours work well together in Fairisle knitting but also that each shade is a beautiful individual colour for single colour knitting.

British Breeds is made from four different British sheep breeds: The wool fibre from each breed adds a certain characteristic to the yarn; Bluefaced Leicester adds the beautiful softness, Exmoor Horn adds the softness too but this sheep produces a white fleece therefore adding a ‘cleanness’ to the blended tops making for more successful dyeing. Wensleydale adds the strength and lustre and Zwartbles adds the bounce or springiness. To produce the yarn, the Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn and Wensleydale wool fibres are first blended together and then dyed into various coloured tops. These coloured tops are then blended together using a ‘recipe’ to create each of the 16 base colours. Each colour base is then blended with the undyed Zwartbles fibre creating the lovely mélange effect. Once the yarn is spun it is sent to Edward Hill’s Ltd in Bradford to be steam relaxed and balled into 25g balls. The steam finishing ‘opens up’ the yarn creating the full, light appearance and handle.

Brand: Marie Wallin

Fibre: 25% Bluefaced Leicester wool | 25% Exmoor Horn wool | 25% Wensleydale wool |  25% Zwartbles wool

Thickness: Fingering

Yardage/Meterage: 93 yds | 85m

Grams: 25g

Needle Size: US 2.5-3 | 3-3.25mm

Knitting Gauge: 26-28 stitches/4 inches

Texture: Plied

Colour: Solid, heathered

Care: To care for your British Breeds garment or accessory, please hand wash in cold water only, using a mild liquid detergent, suitable for delicate woollens and reshape whilst damp.

Put-up: No winding required. It is recommended that you pull the yarn from the outside of the ball.

Made in the UK