Marie Wallin British Breeds Yarn

BRITISH BREEDS is Marie Wallin’s signature yarn - a beautiful, soft, bouncy worsted spun yarn from Devon, in both 4-ply and aran weights. Marie carefully curated the color palette to insure the yarn will work well together in Fair Isle knitting, but would also be lovely for single color projects.

BRITISH BREEDS is made from four different British sheep breeds: Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn, Wensleydale (or Romney) and Zwartbles. The wool fiber from each breed adds a unique characteristic to the yarn. Bluefaced Leicester adds the beautiful softness. Exmoor Horn adds softness as well, but this sheep produces a white fleece, thereby adding a ‘cleaness’ to the blended tops that makes for more successful dyeing. Wensleydale / Romney adds the strength and luster. And Zwartbles adds the bounce, or springiness. To produce the yarn, the Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn and Wensleydale / Romney wool fibers are first blended together and then dyed into various colored tops. These colored tops are then blended together using a ‘recipe’ to create each of the base colors. Each color base is then blended with the undyed Zwartbles fiber 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. The steam finishing ‘opens up’ the yarn creating the full, light appearance and handle.

British Breeds (Fingering weight)
25 grams / 93 yards
6.5 stitches per inch / US 3

British Breeds Aran
50 grams / 93 yards
19 stitches and 26 rows per 4" on US 7 needles

100% British Wool, made in the United Kingdom
Hand wash, lay flat to dry