Marie Wallin British Breeds

British Breeds has taken two years to develop into the beautiful, soft, bouncy 4 ply yarn that it is today. Worsted spun in Devon by John Arbon and his wonderful team, British Breeds is now available in 26 colours - it took a long time to finalise the colour palette as I had 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 ‘cleaness’ 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.

In Lot 016 Raw, Romney replaces Wensleydale and all shades from Lot 017 will change over to the new blend of Bluefaced Leicester, Exmoor Horn, Romney and Zwartbles.

British Breeds has an approximate length of 85m (93 yds) and a tension of 28 sts & 29 rows to 10cm measured over Fair Isle knitting using 3.25mm needles. On stocking stitch the tension is 26 sts & 34 rows to 10cm using 3mm needles.  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.